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The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN

By JOHN T. MORSE, Jr.

IN TWO VOLUMES

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

JOHN T. MORSE, Jr.

VOLUME I

CAMBRIDGE

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J.GOO, irta year oj irie juincom-jjougoas aeoazas,
and is regarded by competent judges as one of the
best and most characteristic portraits of Lincoln
ever made. An etching by M. Rajon, the late
eminent French artist, and a masterly engraving
on wood by Mr, Gustav Kruell, were both based
upon it. The portrait prefixed to the second vol-
ume is reproduced, also by the photogravure pro-
cess, from a photograph taken in 1864, at the
tJ/mn nf G-eameal Chant 's visit to Washinaton to

NOTE ON THE PORTRAITS

The Publishers take pleasure in presenting, in
this Life of Abraham Lincoln, two exceptionally
fine portraits of the great President. That which
forms the frontispiece of the first volume is a pho-
togravure reproduction of a photograph taken in
1858, the year of the Lincoln-Douglas debates,
and is regarded by competent judges as one of the
best and most characteristic portraits of Lincoln
ever made. An etching by M. Rajon, the late
eminent French artist, and a masterly engraving
on wood by Mr. Gustav Kruell, were both based
upon it. The portrait prefixed to the second vol-
ume is reproduced, also by the photogravure pro-
cess, from a photograph taken in 1864, at the
time of General Grant's visit to Washington to
receive from Mr. Lincoln's hands his commission
as Lieutenant-General of all the armies of the
republic. The fact that the original negatives
were not retouched gives these portraits especial
value, and is an added assurance of their fidelity.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

The Raw Material 1

CHAPTER II.
The Start in Life 35

CHAPTER III.
Love; A Duel; Law, and Congress .... 62

CHAPTER IV.

North and South ........ 82

CHAPTER V.
The Lincoln-Douglas Joint Debate . . . .111

CHAPTER VI.
Election 161

CHAPTER VII.
Interregnum 180

CHAPTER VIII.
The Beginning of War ....... 229

CHAPTER IX.
A Real President, and not a Real Battle . . 273

Vi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.

The First Act of the McClellan Drama . . . 303

CHAPTER XL

Military Matters outside op Virginia . . . 346

CHAPTER XII.

Foreign Affairs • * 368

(^TO^M^Wfol

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

CHAPTER I.

THE RAW MATERIAL.

Abraham Lincoln knew little concerning his
progenitors, and rested well content with the scan-
tiness of his knowledge. The character and con-
dition of his father, of whom alone upon that side
of the house he had personal cognizance, did not
encourage him to pry into the obscurity behind
that luckless rover. He was sensitive on the sub-
ject; and when he was applied to for information,
a brief paragraph conveyed all that he knew or de-
sired to know. Without doubt he would have
been best pleased to have the world take him solely
for himself, with no inquiry as to whence he came,
— as if he had dropped upon the planet like a
meteorite; as, indeed, many did piously hold that
he came a direct gift from heaven. The fullest
statement which he ever made was given in Decem-
ber, 1859, to Mr. Fell, who had interrogated him
with an eye "to the possibilities of his being an
available candidate for the presidency in 1860 : "
"My parents were both born in Virginia, of un-

2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

distinguished families, — second families, perhaps
I should say. My mother . . . was of a family
of the name of Hanks, some of whom now remain
in Adams, some others in Macon, counties, Illi-
nois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lin-
coln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Vir-
ginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 1782. . . .
His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia
from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to
identify them with the New England family of the
same name ended in nothing more definite than a
similarity of Christian names in both families,
such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abra-
ham, and the like."

This effort to connect the president with the
Lincoln s of Massachusetts was afterward carried
forward by others, who felt an interest greater
than his own in establishing the fact. Yet if he
had expected the quest to result satisfactorily, he
would probably have been less indifferent about it ;
for it is obvious that, in common with all Ameri-
cans of the old native stock, he had a strenuous
desire to come of "respectable people;" and his
very reluctance to have his apparently low extrac-
tion investigated is evidence that he would have
been glad to learn that he belonged to an ancient
and historical family of the old Puritan Common-
wealth, settlers not far from Plymouth Eock, and
immigrants not long after the arrival of the May-
flower. This descent has at last been traced by
the patient genealogist.

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TEE RAW MATERIAL. 3

So early as 1848 the first useful step was taken
by Hon. Solomon Lincoln of Hingham, Massa-
chusetts, who was struck by a speech delivered by
Abraham Lincoln in the national House of Repre-
sentatives, and wrote to ask facts as to his parent-
age. The response 1 stated substantially what was
afterward sent to Mr. Fell, above quoted. Mr.
Solomon Lincoln, however, pursued the search
further, and printed the results.2 Later, Mr.
Samuel Shackford of Chicago, Illinois, himself a
descendant from the same original stock, pushed
the investigation more persistently.3 The chain,
as put together by these two gentlemen, is as fol-
lows: Hingham, Massachusetts, was settled in
1635. In 1636 house-lots were set off to Thomas
Lincoln, the miller, Thomas Lincoln, the weaver,
and Thomas Lincoln, the cooper. In 1638 other
lots were set off to Thomas Lincoln, the husband-
man, and to Stephen, his brother. In 1637 Sam-
uel Lincoln, aged eighteen, came from England to
Salem, Massachusetts, and three years later went
to Hingham ; he also was a weaver, and a brother
of Thomas, the weaver. In 1644 there was a
Daniel Lincoln in the place. All these Lincolns
are believed to have come from the County of Nor-
folk in England,4 though what kinship existed be-

1 Two letters, now in the possession of Mr. Francis H. Lincoln,
of Boston, Mass.

2 New England Hist, and Gen. Register, Oct., 1865.
8 Ibid., April, 1887, vol. xli. p. 153.

4 See articles in JSF. E. H. and G. Reg. above cited. Mr. Lin-
coln's article states that in Norwich, Norfolk County, Eng., there

4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

tween them is not known. It is from Samuel that
the president appears to have been descended.
Samuel's fourth son, Mordecai, a blacksmith,
married a daughter of Abraham Jones, of Hull ; 1
about 1704 he moved to the neighboring town of
Scituate, and there set up a furnace for smelting
iron ore. This couple had six children, of whom
two were named respectively Mordecai and Abra-
ham ; and these two are believed to have gone to
Monmouth County, New Jersey. There Mordecai
seems to have continued in the iron business, and
later to have made another move to Chester
County, Pennsylvania, still continuing in the same
business, until, in 1725, he sold out all his "Mynes
& Minerals, Forges, etc."2 Then, migrating
again, he settled in Amity, Philadelphia County,
Pennsylvania, where, at last, death caught up with
him. By his will, February 22, 1735-36, he be-
queathed his land in New Jersey to John, his eld-
est son ; and gave other property to his sons Mor-
decai and Thomas. He belied the old motto, for
in spite of more than three removes he left a fair
estate, and in the probate proceedings he is de-
scribed as "gentleman."3 In 1748 John sold all

is a " curious chased copper box with the inscription ' Abraham
Lincoln, Norwich, 1731 ; ' " also in St. Andrew's church in the
same place a mural tablet : " In memory of Abraham Lincoln, of
this parish, who died July 13, 1798, aged 79 years." Similarities
of name are also noted.

1 A town adjoining Hingham, Mass.

2 His brother Abraham also resided in Chester County, and died
there, April, 1745.

3 N. and H., i. 3.

THE RAW MATERIAL. 5

he had in New Jersey, and in 1758 moved into
Virginia, settling in that part of Augusta County
which was afterward set off as Kockingham
County. Though his will has not been found,
there is "ample proof," says Mr. Shackford. that
he had five sons named Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Thomas and John. Of these, Abraham went to
North Carolina, there married Mary Shipley, and
by her had sons Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas,
who was born in 1778. In 1780 or 1782, as it is
variously stated, this family moved to Kentucky.
There, one day in 1784, the father, at his labor in
the field, was shot by lurking Indians. His oldest
son, working hard by, ran to the house for a gun ;
returning toward the spot where lay his father's
body, he saw an Indian in the act of seizing his
brother, the little boy named Thomas. He fired,
with happy aim ; the Indian fell dead, and Thomas
escaped to the house. This Thomas it was who
afterward became the father of Abraham Lincoln.1
Of the other sons of Mordecai (great-uncles of the
President), Thomas also went to Kentucky, Isaac
went to Tennessee, while Jacob and John stayed
in Virginia, and begat progeny who became in
later time ferocious rebels, and of whom one wrote
a very comical blustering letter to his relative the
President;2 and probably another, bearing oddly

1 A different pedigree, published in the Lancaster Intelligencer,
Sept. 24, 1879, by David J. Lincoln, of Birdsboro, Berks County,
Penn., is refuted by George Lincoln, of Hingham, Mass., in the
Hingham Journal, Oct. 10, 1879.

2 N. and H., i. 4 note.

6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

enough the name of Abraham, was a noted fighter.1
It is curious to observe of what migratory stock we
have here the sketch. Mr. Shackford calls atten-
tion to the fact that through six successive genera-
tions all save one were "pioneers in the settlement
of new countries," thus: 1. Samuel came from
England to Hingham, Massachusetts. 2. Mor-
decai lived and died at Scituate, close by the place
of his birth. 3. Mordecai moved, and settled in
Pennsylvania, in the neighborhood which after-
ward became Berks County, while it was still wil-
derness. 4. John moved into the wilds of Vir-
ginia. 5. Abraham went to the backwoods of
Kentucky, shortly after Boone's settlement. 6.
Thomas moved first into the sparsely settled parts
of Indiana, and thence, went onward to a similar
region in Illinois.

Thus in time was corroborated what Abraham
Lincoln wrote in 1848 in one of the above-men-
tioned letters to Hon. Solomon Lincoln: "We
have a vague tradition that my great-grandfather
went from Pennsylvania to Virginia, and that he
was a Quaker." It is of little consequence that
this "vague tradition " was stoutly contradicted by
the President's father, the ignorant Thomas, who
indignantly denied that either a Puritan or a
Quaker could be found in the line of his forbears,
and who certainly seemed to set heredity at de-
fiance if such were the case. But while thus repu-
diating others, Thomas himself was in some danger

1 N. and EL, i. 4 note.

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THE RAW MATERIAL. 7

of being repudiated ; for so pained have some per-
sons been by the necessity of recognizing Thomas
Lincoln as the father of the President, that they
have welcomed, as a happy escape from this so
miserable paternity, a bit of gratuitous and unsup-
ported gossip, published, though perhaps with
more of malice than of faith, by Mr. Herndon, to
the effect that Abraham Lincoln was the illegiti-
mate son of some person unknown, presumably
some tolerably well-to-do Kentuckian, who induced
Thomas to assume the role of parent.

Upon the mother's side the ancestral showing is
meagre, and fortunately so, since the case seems
to be a bad one beyond reasonable hope. Her
name was Nancy Hanks. She was born in Vir-
ginia, and was the illegitimate child of one Lucy
Hanks.1 Nor was she the only instance of illegi-
timacy 2 in a family which, by all accounts, seems
to have been very low in the social scale. Mr.
Herndon calls them by the dread name of "poor
whites," and gives an unappetizing sketch of
them.3 Throughout his pages and those of La-
mon there is abundant and disagreeable evidence
to show the correctness of his estimate. Nancy
Hanks herself, who certainly was not to blame for
her parentage, and perhaps may have improved
matters by an infusion of better blood from her

1 Herndon, 3.

2 The unpleasant Dennis Hanks was an illegitimate son of an
"aunt of the President's mother." Herndon, 13 ; and see Lamon,
12.

3 Herndon, 14.

8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

unknown father, is described by some as a very
rare flower to have bloomed amid the bed of ugly
weeds which surrounded her. These friendly
writers make her a gentle, lovely, Christian crea-
ture, too delicate long to survive the roughness
of frontier life and the fellowship of the shift-
less rover to whom she was unfittingly wedded.1
Whatever she may have been, her picture is ex-
ceeding dim and has been made upon scant and
not unquestionable evidence. Mr. Lincoln seems
not often to have referred to her; but when he did
so it was with expressions of affection for her char-
acter and respect for her mental qualities, provided
at least that it was really of her, and not of his
step-mother that he was speaking, — a matter not
clear from doubt.2 ^

On June 10, 1806, Thomas Lincoln gave bond
in the "just and full sum of fifty pounds" to
marry Nancy Hanks, and two days later, June
12, he did so, in Washington County, Kentucky.3
She was then twenty-three years old. February
12, 1807, their daughter Sarah was born, who
was married and died leaving no issue. February
12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born; no other
children came save a boy who lived only a few
days.

The domestic surroundings amid which the babe

1 Holland, 23; Lamon, 11; N. and H., i. 24; Herndon, 13, 28;
Raymond, 20; but Raymond is no authority as to Lincoln's
youth ; and Holland is little more valuable for the same period.

2 Lamon, 32. But see Herndon, 13.

3 N. and H., i. 23 ; Herndon, 5 ; but see Lamon, 10.

THE RAW MATERIAL. 9

came into life were wretched in the extreme. All
the trustworthy evidence depicts a condition of
what civilized people call misery. It is just as
well to acknowledge a fact which cannot now be
obscured by any amount of euphemism. Yet very
many of Lincoln's biographers have been greatly
concerned to color this truth, which he himself,
with his honest nature, was never willing to mis-
represent, however much he resisted efforts to give
it a general publicity. He met curious inquiry
with reticence, but with no attempt to mislead.
Some of his biographers, however, while shunning
direct false statements, have used alleviating ad-
jectives with literary skill, and have drawn fanci-
ful pictures of a pious frugal household, of a gal-
lant frontiersman endowed with a long catalogue
of noble qualities, and of a mother like a Madonna
in the wilderness.1 Yet all the evidence that there
is goes to show that this romantic coloring is purely
illusive. Rough, coarse, low, ignorant, and pov-
erty-stricken surroundings were about the child ;
and though we may gladly avail ourselves of the
possibility of believing his mother to have been
superior to all the rest of it, yet she could by no
means leaven the mass. The father 2 was by call-

1 For instance, see the pages of the first chapter of the Life by
Arnold, a book which becomes excellent after the author has got
free from the fancied necessities of creating an appropriate back-
ground for the origin and childhood of the hero. So, more briefly,
Raymond, who gives no authority to support the faith which is in
him.

2 For description of him, see Lamon, 8, 9 ; Herndon, 11.

10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

ing a carpenter, but not good at his trade, a shift-
less migratory squatter by invincible tendency,
and a very ignorant man, for a long while able
only to form the letters which made his signature,
though later he extended his accomplishments a
little. He rested not much above the very bottom
of existence in the pioneer settlements, apparently
without capacity or desire to do better. The fam-
ily was imbued with the peculiar, intense, but un-
enlightened form of Christianity, mingled with
curious superstition, prevalent in the backwoods,
and begotten by the influence of the vast wilder-
ness upon illiterate men of a rude native force.
It interests scholars to trace the evolutions of re-
ligious faiths, but it might be not less suggestive
to study the retrogression of religion into super-
stition. Thomas was as restless in matters of
creed as of residence, and made various changes
in both during his life. These were, however,
changes without improvement, and, so far as he
was concerned, his son Abraham might have
grown up to be what he himself was contented to
remain.

It was in the second year after his marriage
that Thomas Lincoln made his first removal.
Four years later he made another. Two or three
years afterwards, in the autumn of 1816, he aban-
doned Kentucky and went into Indiana. Some
writers have given to this migration the interesting
character of a flight from a slave-cursed society to
a land of freedom, but whatever poetic fitness there

TEE RAW MATERIAL. 11

might be in such a motive the suggestion is en-
tirely gratuitous and without the slightest foun-
dation.1 In making this move, Thomas's outfit
consisted of a trifling parcel of tools and cooking
utensils, with ever so little bedding, and four hun-
dred gallons of whiskey. At his new quarters he
built a "half -faced camp" fourteen feet square,
that is to say, a covered shed of three sides, the
fourth side being left open to the weather. In
this, less snug than the winter's cave of a bear,
the family dwelt for a year, and then were trans-
lated to the luxury of a "cabin," four- walled in-
deed, but which for a long while had neither
floor, door, nor window. Amid this hardship and
wretchedness Nancy Lincoln passed away, Octo-
ber 5, 1818, of that dread and mysterious dis-
ease, the scourge of those pioneer communities,
known as the "milk-sickness." 2 In a rough coffin,
fashioned by her husband "out of green lumber
cut with a whip-saw," she was laid away in the
forest clearing, and a few months afterward an
initerant preacher performed some funeral rites
over the poor woman's humble grave.

For a year Thomas Lincoln was a widower.
Then he went back to Kentucky, and found there
Mrs. Sally Johnston, a widow, whom, when she
was the maiden Sarah Bush, he had loved and
courted, and by whom he had been refused. He
now asked again, and with better success. The

1 Herndon, 19 ; Lamon, 16 ; Holland, 25.

2 Herndon, 25-28 ; Lamon, 26-28.

12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

marriage was a little inroad of good luck into
his career; for the new wife was thrifty and in-
dustrious, with the ambition and the capacity to
improve the squalid condition of her husband's
household. She had, too, worldly possessions of
bedding and furniture, enough to fill a four-horse
wagon. She made her husband put a floor, a
door, and windows to his cabin. From the day of
her advent a new spirit made itself felt amid the
belongings of the inefficient Thomas. Her imme-
diate effort was to make her new husband's chil-
dren "look a little more human," and the youthful
Abraham began to get crude notions of the simpler
comforts and decencies of life. All agree that she
was a step-mother to whose credit it is to be said
that she manifested an intelligent kindness towards
Abraham.

The opportunities for education were scant
enough in that day and place. In his childhood
in Kentucky Abraham got a few weeks with one
teacher, and then a few weeks with another.
Later, in Indiana, he studied a few months, in a
scattered way. Probably he had instruction at
home, for the sum of all the schooling which he
had in his whole life was hardly one year ; 1 a sin-
gular start upon the road to the presidency of the
United States! The books which he saw were
few, but a little later he laid hands upon them all
and read and re-read them till he must have ab-
sorbed all their strong juice into his own nature.
1 Herndon, 34-37, 41 ; Lamon, 34-36 ; Holland, 28.

J(< 1(111 (p/ltlW.

TEE RAW MATERIAL. 13

Nicolay and Hay give the list: The Bible;
"^Esop's Fables;" "Kobinson Crusoe;" "The
Pilgrim's Progress;" a history of the United
States; Weems's "Washington." He was doubt-
less much older when he devoured the Eevised
Statutes of Indiana in the office of the town con-
stable. Dr. Holland adds Lives of Henry Clay,
and of Franklin (probably the famous autobiogra-
phy), and Ramsay's "Washington;" and Arnold
names Shakespeare and Burns. It was a small
library, but nourishing. He used to write and to
do sums in arithmetic on the wooden shovel by the
fireside, and to shave off the surface in order to
renew the labor.

As he passed from boyhood to youth his mental
development took its characteristics from the pop-
ular demand of the neighborhood. He scribbled
verses and satirical prose, wherein the coarse wit
was adapted to the taste of the comrades whom it
was designed to please; and it must be admitted
that, after giving due weight to all ameliorating
considerations, it is impossible to avoid disappoint-
ment at the grossness of the jesting. No thought,
no word raised it above the low level of the audi-
ence made up of the laborers on the farms and the
loungers in the groceries. The biographer who
has made public "The First Chronicles of Reu-
ben " deserves to be held in detestation.1

A more satisfactory form of intellectual efferves-

1 Mr. Herndon did this ill deed ; 50-54. Lamon prefers to say
that most of this literature is "too indecent for publication," 63.

14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

cence consisted in writing articles on the American
Government, Temperance, etc., and in speech-
making to any who were near at the moment of
inspiration. There is abundant evidence, also,
that already Lincoln was regarded as a witty fel-
low, a rare mimic, and teller of jokes and stories;
and therefore was the champion of the fields and
the favorite of all the primitive social gatherings.
This sort of life and popularity had its perils ; for
in that day and region men seldom met without
drinking together; but all authorities are agreed
that Lincoln, while the greatest talker, was the
smallest drinker.

The stories told of his physical strength rival
those which decorate the memory of Hercules.
Others, which show his kindly and humane nature,
are more valuable. Any or all of these may or
may not be true, and though they are not so poeti-
cal or marvelous as the myths which lend an an-
tique charm to the heroes of classic and romantic
lore, yet they compare fairly well with those which
Weems has twined about the figure of the youthful
Washington. There is a tale of the rescue of a
pig from a quagmire, and another of the saving of
a drunken man from freezing. There are many
stories of fights ; others of the lifting of enormous
weights ; and even some of the doing of great feats
of labor in a day, though for such tasks Lincoln
had no love. These are not worth recounting ; there
is store of such in every village about the popular
local hero; and though historians by such folk-lore

TEE RAW MATERIAL. 15

may throw a glamour about Lincoln's daily life,
he himself, at the time, could hardly have seen
much that was romantic or poetical in the routine
of ill-paid labor and hard living. Until he came
of age his "time" belonged to his father, who let
him out to the neighbors for any job that offered,
making him a man-of -all-work, without-doors and
within. In 1825 he was thus earning six dollars
a month, presumably besides board and lodging.
Sometimes he slaughtered hogs, at thirty-one cents
a day; and in this "rough work" he was esteemed
especially efficient. Such was the making of a
President in the United States in this nineteenth
century !

Thomas Lincoln, like most men of his stamp,
had the cheerful habit of laying the results of his
own worthlessness to the charge of the conditions
about him, which, naturally, he constantly sought
to change, since it seemed that no change could
bring him to a lower level than he had already
found. As Abraham approached his "freedom-
day," his luckless parent conceived the notion that
he might do better in Illinois than he had done in
Indiana. So he shuffled off the farm, for which
he had never paid, and about the middle of Feb-
ruary the family caravan, with their scanty house-
hold wares packed in an ox team, began a march
which lasted fourteen days and entailed no small
measure of hardship. They finally stopped at a
bluff on the north bank of the north fork of the
Sangamon, a stream which empties into the Ohio.

16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Here Thomas Lincoln renewed the familiar process
of "starting in life," and with an axe, a saw and
a knife built a rough cabin of hewed logs, with a
smoke-house and "stable." Abraham, aided by-
John Hanks, cleared ten or fifteen acres of land,
split the rails and fenced it, planted it with corn,
and made it over to Thomas as a sort of bequest at
the close of his term of legal infancy. His subse-
quent relationship with his parents, especially with
his father, seems to have been slight, involving an
occasional gift of money, a very rare visit, and
finally a commonplace letter of Christian comfort
when the old man was on his death-bed.1

At first Abraham's coming of age made no es-
pecial change in his condition; he continued to
find such jobs as he could, as an example of which
is mentioned his bargain with Mrs. Nancy Miller
"to split four hundred rails for every yard of
brown jeans dyed with white walnut bark that
would be necessary to make him a pair of trou-
sers." After many months there arrived in the
neighborhood one Denton Oifut, one of those
scheming, talkative, evanescent busy-bodies who
skim vaguely over new territories. This adven-
turer had a cargo of hogs, pork, and corn, which
he wanted to send to New Orleans, and the en-
gagement fell to Lincoln and two comrades at the
wage of fifty cents per day and a bonus of $60 for
the three. It has been said that this and a pre-
ceding trip down the Mississippi first gave Lincoln

1 Thomas Lincoln died Jan. 17, 1851.

THE RAW MATERIAL. 17

a glimpse of slavery in concrete form, and that the
spectacle of negroes "in chains, whipped and
scourged," and of a slave auction, implanted in his
mind an "unconquerable hate" towards the insti-
tution, so that he exclaimed: "If ever I get a
chance to hit that thing, I '11 hit it hard." So
the loquacious myth-maker John Hanks asserts ; 1
but Lincoln himself refers his first vivid impres-
sion to a later trip, made in 1841, when there
were "on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled to-
gether with irons." Of this subsequent incident
he wrote, fourteen years later, to his friend,
Joshua Speed: "That sight was a continual tor-
ment to me; and I see something like it every
time I touch the Ohio or any other slave border.
It is not fair for you to assume that I have no in-
terest in a thing which has, and continually exer-
cises, the power of making me miserable."2

Of more immediate consequence was the notion
which the rattle-brained Offut conceived of Lin-
coln's general ability. This lively patron now
proposed to build a river steamboat, with "run-
ners for ice and rollers for shoals and dams," of
which his redoubtable young employee was to be
captain. But this strange scheme gave way to an-
other for opening in New Salem a "general store"
of all goods. This small town had been born only
a few months before this summer of 1831, and was
destined to a brief but riotous life of some seven

1 Herndon, 75, 76; Lamon, 82; Arnold, 30; N. and H., i. 72.

2 N. and H., i. 74.

18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

years' duration. Now it had a dozen or fifteen
"houses," of which some had cost only ten dollars
for the building ; yet to the sanguine Off ut it pre-
sented a fair field for retail commerce. He accord-
ingly equipped his "store," and, being himself en-
gaged in other enterprises, he installed Lincoln as
manager. Soon he also gave Lincoln a mill to
run.

Besides all this patronage, Offut went about the
region bragging in his extravagant way that his
clerk "knew more than any man in the United
States," would some day be President, and could
now throw or thrash any man in those parts. Now
it so happened that some three miles out from New
Salem lay Clary's Grove, the haunt of a gang of
frontier ruffians of the familiar type, among whom
one Jack Armstrong was champion bully. Offut's
boasting soon rendered an encounter between Lin-
coln and Armstrong inevitable, though Lincoln did
his best to avoid it, and declared his aversion to
"this woolling and pulling." The wrestling match
was arranged and the settlers flocked to it like
Spaniards to a bull-fight. Battle was joined and
Lincoln was getting the better of Armstrong,
whereupon the "Clary's Grove boys," with fine
chivalry, were about to rush in upon Lincoln and
maim him, or worse, when the timely intervention
of a prominent citizen possibly saved even the life
of the future President.1 Some of the biogra-
phers, borrowing the license of poets, have chosen

1 Lamon, 92, 93, has the best account of this famous encounter.

oJ/ke (H/LOi'ieeJv.

THE RAW MATERIAL. 19

to tell about the "boys" and the wrestling match
with such picturesque epithets that the combat
bids fair to appear to posterity as romantic as that
of Friar Tuck and Eobin Hood. Its consequence
was that Armstrong and Lincoln were fast friends
ever after. Wherever Lincoln was at work, Arm-
strong used to "do his loafing," and Lincoln made
visits to Clary's Grove, and long afterward did a
friendly service to "old Hannah," Armstrong's
wife, by saving one of her vicious race from the
gallows, which upon that especial occasion he did
not happen to deserve. Also Armstrong and his
gang gave Lincoln hearty political support, and an
assistance at the polls which was very effective, for
success generally smiled on that candidate who had
as his constituency1 "the butcher-knife boys,"
"the bare-footed boys," the "half -horse, half -alli-
gator men," and the "huge-pawed boys."

An item less susceptible of a poetic coloring is
that about this time Lincoln ransacked the neigh-
borhood in search of an English grammar, and
getting trace of one six miles out from the settle-
ment, he walked over to borrow or to buy it. He
brought it back in triumph, and studied it exhaus-
tively.

There are also some tales of his honesty which
may stand without disgrace beside that of Wash-
ington and the cherry-tree, and may be better en-
titled to credit. It is said that, while he was
"keeping shop" for Offut, a woman one day acci-

1 Ford, Hist, of Illinois, 88.

20 ABE AH AM LINCOLN.

dentally overpaid him by the sum of fourpence, and
that he walked several miles that night to restore
the sum to her before he slept. On another occa-
sion, discovering that in selling half a pound of tea
he had used too small a weight, he started instantly
forth to make good the deficiency. Perhaps this
integrity does not so much differentiate Lincoln
from his fellows as it may seem to do, for it is said
that honesty was the one distinguishing virtue of
that queer society. None the less these legends
are exponents, which the numerous fighting stories
are not, of the genuine nature of the man. His
chief trait all his life long was honesty of all kinds
and in all things ; not only commonplace, material
honesty in dealings, but honesty in language, in
purpose, in thought ; honesty of mind, so that he
could never even practice the most tempting of all
deceits, a deceit against himself. This pervasive
honesty was the trait of his identity, which stayed
with him from beginning to end, when other traits
seemed to be changing, appearing or disappearing,
and bewildering the observer of his career. All
the while the universal honesty was there.

It took less than a year for Offut's shop to come
to ruin, for the proprietor to wander off into the
unknown void from which he had come, and for
Lincoln to find himself again without occupation.
He won some local reputation by navigating the
steamboat "Talisman" up the Sangamon Eiver to
Springfield ; but nothing came of it.

The foregoing narrative ought to have given

THE RAW MATERIAL. 21

some idea of the moral and physical surroundings
of Lincoln's early days. Americans need to carry
their memories hardly fifty years back, in order to
have a lively conception of that peculiar body of
men which for many years was pushed out in
front of civilization in the West. Waifs and
strays from highly civilized communities, these
wanderers had not civilization to learn, but rather
they had shuffled off much that belonged to civili-
zation, and afterwards they had to acquire it
afresh. Among them crudity in thought and un-
couthness in habits were intertwined in odd, incon-
gruous crossings with the remnants of the more
respectable customs with which they had once been
familiar. Much they forgot and much they put
away as being no longer useful ; many of them —
not all — became very ignorant without being
stupid, very brutal without being barbarous.
Finding life hard, they helped each other with a
general kindliness which is impracticable among
the complexities of elaborate social organizations.
Those who were born on the land, among whom
Lincoln belonged, were peculiar in having no
reminiscences, no antecedent ideas derived from
their own past, whereby to modify the influences
of the immediate present. What they should
think about men and things they gathered from
what they saw and heard around them. Even the
modification to be got from reading was of the
slightest, for very little reading was possible, even
if desired. An important trait of these Western

22 . ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

communities was the closeness of personal inter-
course in them, and the utter lack of any kind of
barriers establishing strata of society. Individ-
uals might differ ever so widely; but the wisest
and the dullest, the most worthless and the most
enterprising, had to rub shoulder to shoulder in
daily life. Yet the variety was considerable:
hardy and danger - loving pioneers fulfilling the
requirements of romance ; shiftless vagrants curi-
ously combining utter inefficiency with a sort of
bastard contempt for hardship ; ruffians who could
only offset against every brutal vice an ignoble
physical courage ; intelligent men whose observant
eyes ranged over the whole region in a shrewd
search after enterprise and profit; a few educated
men, decent in apparel and bearing, useful in legis-
lation and in preventing the ideal from becoming
altogether vulgarized and debased; and others
whose energy was chiefly of the tongue, the class
imbued with a taste for small politics and the pub-
lic business. All these and many other varieties
were like ingredients cast together into a caldron ;
they could not keep apart, each with his own kind,
to the degree which is customary in old established
communities ; but they all ceaselessly crossed and
mingled and met, and talked, and dealt, and
helped and hustled each other, and exerted upon
each other that subtle inevitable influence resulting
from such constant intercourse ; and so they inocu-
lated each other with certain characteristics which
became common to all and formed the type of the

^^cr^ls

at on & Go

THE RAW MATERIAL. 23

early settler. Thus was made "the new West,"
"the great West," which was pushed ever onward,
and endured along each successive frontier for
about a generation. An eternal movement, a
tireless coming and going pervaded these men;
they passed hither and thither without pause,
phantasmagorically ; they seemed to be forever
"moving on," some because they were real pio-
neers and natural rovers, others because they were
mere vagrants generally drifting away from credi-
tors, others because the better chance seemed ever
in the newer place, and all because they had struck
no roots, gathered no associations, no home ties,
no local belongings. The shopkeeper "moved
on" when his notes became too pressing; the
schoolmaster, after a short stay, left his school to
some successor whose accomplishments could hardly
be less than his own; clergymen ranged vaguely
through the country, to preach, to pray, to bury,
to marry, as the case might be ; farmers heard of
a more fruitful soil, and went to seek it. Men
certainly had at times to work hard in order to live
at all, yet it was perfectly possible for the natural
idler to rove, to loaf, and to be shiftless at inter-
vals, and to become as demoralized as the tramp
for whom a shirt and trousers are the sum of
worldly possessions. Books were scarce ; many
teachers hardly had as much book-learning as lads
of thirteen years now have among ourselves. Men
who could neither read nor write abounded, and
a deficiency so common could hardly imply much

24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

disgrace or a marked inferiority; many learned
these difficult arts only in mature years. Fighting
was a common pastime, and when these rough fel-
lows fought, they fought like savages; Lincoln's
father bit off his adversary's nose in a fight, and
a cousin lost the same feature in the same way ;
the "gouging" of eyes was a legitimate resource.
The necessity of fighting might at any moment
come to any one ; even the combination of a peace-
able disposition with formidable strength did not
save Lincoln from numerous personal affrays, of
which many are remembered, and not improbably
many more have been forgotten. In spite of the
picturesque adjectives which have been so decora-
tively used in describing the ruffian of the fron-
tier, he seems to have been about what his class
always is; and when these fellows had forced a
fight, or "set up" a match, their chivalry never
prevented any unfairness or brutality. A tale
illustrative of the times is told of a closely con-
tested election in the legislature for the office of
State Treasurer. The worsted candidate strode
into the hall of the Assembly and gallantly select-
ing four of the largest and strongest of those who
had voted against him, thrashed them soundly.
The other legislators ran away. But before the
close of the session this pugilist, who so well un-
derstood practical politics, was appointed Clerk of
the Circuit Court and County Eecorder.1

Corn bread was the chief article of diet ; pota-

1 Ford, Hist, of Illinois, 81.

THE RAW MATERIAL. 25

toes were a luxury and were often eaten raw, like
apples. To the people at large whiskey "straight "
seemed the natural drink of man, and whiskey
toddy was not distasteful to woman. To refuse
to drink was to subject one's self to abuse and sus-
picion;1 Lincoln's notorious lack of liking for it
passed for an eccentricity, or a physical peculiar-
ity. The customary social gatherings were at
horse - racings, at corn - shuckings, at political
speech-makings, at weddings, whereat the coarse
proceedings would not nowadays bear recital; at
log-rollings, where the neighbors gathered to col-
lect the logs of a newly cleared lot for burning?
and at house-raisings, where they kindly aided to
set up the frame of a cabin for a new-comer; at
camp-meetings, where the hysterical excitement of
a community whose religion was more than half
superstition found clamorous and painful vent;2
or perchance at a hanging, which, if it met public
approbation, would be sanctioned by the gathering
of the neighbors within a day's journey of the
scene. At dancing-parties men and women danced
barefoot; indeed, they could hardly do better,
since their foot wear was apt to be either mocca-
sins, or such boots as they themselves could make
from the hides which they themselves had cured.
In Lincoln's boyhood the hunting-shirt and leg-
gins made of skins were a sufficiently respectable

1 See anecdote in The Good Old Times in McLean County, 48.

2 " The jerks " was the graphic name of an attack not uncom-
mon at these religious meetings.

26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

garb; and buckskin breeches dyed green were
enough to captivate the heart of any girl who
wished a fashionable lover; but by the time that
he had become a young man, most self-respecting
men had suits of jeans. The ugly butcher's knife
and tomahawk, which had been essential as was
the rapier to the costume of gentlemen two centu-
ries earlier, began now to be more rarely seen at
the belt about the waist. The women wore linsey-
woolsey gowns, of home manufacture, and dyed
according to the taste or skill of the wearer in
stripes and bars with the brown juice of the but-
ternut. In the towns it was not long before calico
was seen, and calfskin shoes; and in such popu-
lous centres bonnets decorated the heads of the
fair sex. Amid these advances in the art of dress
Lincoln was a laggard, being usually one of the
worst attired men of the neighborhood ; not from
affectation but from a natural indifference to such
matters. The sketch is likely to become classical
in American history of the appearance which he
presented with his scant pair of trousers, "hitched "
by a single suspender over his shirt, and so short
as to expose, at the lower end, half a dozen inches
of "shinbone, sharp, blue and narrow."

In the clearings the dwellings of these men were
the "half -faced camp" open upon one side to the
weather, or the doorless, floorless and window-
less cabin, which, with prosperity, might be made
luxurious by greased paper in the windows, and
"puncheon" floors. The furniture was in keeping

THE RAW MATERIAL. 27

with this exterior. At a corner the bed was con-
structed by driving into the ground crotched
sticks, whence poles extended to the crevices of
the walls ; upon these poles were laid boards, and
upon these boards were tossed leaves and skins
and such other alleviating material as could be
found. Three-legged stools and a table were
hewed from the felled trees with an axe, which
was often the settler's only and invaluable tool,
and which he would travel long miles to sharpen.
If a woman wanted a looking-glass, she scoured a
tin pan, but the temptation to inspect one's self
must have been feeble. A very few kitchen
utensils completed the outfit. Troughs served for
washtubs, when washtubs were used; and wooden
ploughs broke up the virgin soil. The whole was
little, if at all, more comfortable than the red
man's wigwam. In "towns," so-called, there was
of course somewhat more of civilization than in the
clearings. But one must not be misled by a name;
a "town" might signify only a score of houses,
and the length of its life was wholly problematical ;
a few days sufficed to build the wooden huts,
which in a few years might be abandoned. In
the early days there was almost no money among
the people ; sometimes barter was resorted to ; one
lover paid for his marriage license with maple
sugar, another with wolf-scalps. More often a
promise sufficed ; credit was a system well under-
stood, and promissory notes constituted an unques-
tioned and popular method of payment that would

28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

have made a millennium for Mr. Micawber. But
however scant might be cash and houses, each town
had its grocery, and these famous "stores" were
by far the chief influence in shaping the ideas of
the Westerner. There all congregated, the idlers
all day long, the busy men in the evening; and
there, stimulated by the whiskey of the proprietor,
they gossiped about everybody's affairs, talked
about business and the prospects of the neighbor-
hood, and argued about the politics of the county,
the state, and even of the nation. Jokes and
stories, often most uncouth and gross, whiled away
the time. It was in these groceries, and in the
rough crucible of such talk, wherein grotesque
imagery and extravagant phrases were used to ridi-
cule pretension and to bring every man to his place,
sometimes also to escape taking a hard fact too
hardly, that what we now call "American humor,"
with its peculiar native flavor, was born. To this
it is matter of tradition that Lincoln contributed
liberally. He liked neighborly chat and discus-
sion; and his fondness for political debate, and
his gifts in tale and jest made him the most popu-
lar man in every "store" that he entered. It is
commonly believed that the effect of this familiar-
ity with coarse talk did not afterward disappear,
so that he never became fastidious in language or in
story. But apologists of this habit are doubtless
correct in saying that vulgarity in itself had no
attraction for him; it simply did not repel him,
when with it there was a flavor of humor or a use-

S.^.S' ■ .s

s- -z - /-

TEE RAW MATERIAL. 29

ful point. Apparently it simply meant nothing to
him; a mental attitude which is not difficult of
comprehension in view of its origin.1

Some of the most picturesque and amusing pages
of Ford's "History of Illinois " describe the condi-
tion of the bench and bar of these times.2 "Boys,
come in, our John is going to hold court," pro-
claimed the sheriff; and the "boys" loitered into
the bar-room of the tavern, or into a log cabin
where the judge sat on the bed and thus, really
from the woolsack, administered "law" mixed with
equity as best he knew it. Usually these magis-
trates were prudent in guiding the course of prac-
tical justice, and rarely summed up the facts lest
they should make dangerous enemies, especially in
criminal cases ; they often refused to state the law,
and generally for a very good reason. They liked
best to turn the whole matter over to the jurors,
who doubtless "understood the case, and would do
justice between the parties." The books of the
science were scarce, and lawyers who studied them
were perhaps scarcer. But probably substantial
fairness in decision did not suffer by reason of
lack of sheepskin learning.

Politics for a long while were strictly personal;
the elections did not turn upon principles or mea-
sures, but upon the popular estimate of the candi-

1 See Herndon, 104, 113 ; Holland has some singular remarks
on this subject, p. 83; N. and H., i. 121, say that Lincoln was
" clean of speech," — an agreeable statement, for which one would
like to have some authority.

2 Ford, Hist, of Illinois, 82-86.

30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

dates individually. Political discussion meant un-
stinted praise and unbounded vilification. A man
might, if he chose, resent a vote against himself as
a personal insult, and hence arose much secrecy
and the "keep dark" system. Stump-speaking,
whiskey and fighting were the chief elements of a
campaign, and the worst class in society furnished
the most efficient backing.1

Such was the condition of men and things in the
neighborhood where Abraham Lincoln was shap-
ing in the days of his youth. Yet it was a con-
dition which did not last long; Illinois herself
changed and grew as rapidly as any youngster
within her borders. The rate of advance in all
that goes to make up what we now regard as a civ-
ilized society was astonishing. Between the time
when Lincoln was fifteen and when he was twenty-
five, the alteration was so great as to be confus-
ing. One hardly became familiar with a condition
before it had vanished. Some towns began to ac-
quire an aspect of permanence ; clothes and man-
ners became like those prevalent in older commu-
nities ; many men were settling down in established
residence, identifying themselves with the fortunes
of their neighborhood. Young persons were grow-
ing up and staying where they had been "raised,"
as the phrase of a farming community had it.
Comfortable and presentable two-story houses lent
an air of prosperity and stimulated ambition ; law-

1 Ford, Hist, of Illinois, 55, 86, 88, 104; Herndon, 103; N. and
H., i. 107; Lamon, 124, 230.

THE RAW MATERIAL. 31

books began to be collected in small numbers ; and
debts were occasionally paid in money, and could
often be collected by legal process. These im-
provements were largely due to the swelling tide
of immigration which brought men of a better type
to push their enterprises in a country presumably
emerging from its disagreeable stage. But the
chief educational influence was to be found in the
Anglo-American passion for an argument and a
speech. Hand in hand, as has so long been the
custom in our country, law and politics moved
among the people, who had an inborn, inherited
taste for both ; these stimulated and educated the
settlers in a way that only Americans can appre-
ciate. When Lincoln, as is soon to be seen,
turned to them, he turned to what then and there
appeared the highest callings which could tempt
intellect and ambition.

The preeminently striking feature in Lincoln's
nature — not a trait of character, but a character-
istic of the man — which is noteworthy in these
early days, and grew more so to the very latest,
was the extraordinary degree to which he always
appeared to be in close and sympathetic touch with
the people, that is to say, the people in the mass
wherein he was imbedded, the social body amid
which he dwelt, which pressed upon him on all
sides, which for him formed "the public." First
this group or body was only the population of the
frontier settlement ; then it widened to include the
State of Illinois ; then it expanded to the popula-

32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

tion of the entire North; and such had come to be
the popular appreciation of this remarkably devel-
oped quality that, at the time of his death, his ad-
mirers even dared to believe that it would be able
to make itself one with all the heterogeneous, dis-
cordant, antagonistic elements which then com-
posed the very disunited United States. It is by
reason of this quality that it has seemed necessary
to depict so far as possible that peculiar, transi-
tory phase of society which surrounded his early
days. This quality in him caused him to be ex-
ceptionally susceptible to the peculiar influences
of the people among whom his lot was cast. This
quality for awhile prevented his differentiating
himself from them, prevented his accepting stand-
ards and purposes unlike theirs either in speech
or action, prevented his rising rapidly to a higher
moral plane than theirs. This quality kept him es-
sentially one of them, until his "people" and his
"public " expanded beyond them. It has been the
fashion of his admirers to manifest an extreme dis-
taste for a truthful presentation of his earlier days.
Some writers have passed very lightly over them ;
others, stating plain facts with a formal accuracy,
have used their skill to give to the picture an un-
truthful miscoloring; two or three, instinct with
the spirit of Zola, have made their sketch with
plain unsparing realism in color as well as in lines,
and so have brought upon themselves abuse, and
perhaps have deserved much of it, by reason of
a lack of skill in doing an unwelcome thing, or

THE RAW MATERIAL. 33

rather by reason of over-doing it. The feeling
which has led to suppression or to a falsely ro-
mantic description seems to me unreasonable and
wrong. The very quality which made Lincoln, as
a young man, not much superior to his coarse sur-
roundings was precisely the same quality which,
ripening and expanding rapidly and grandly with
maturing years and a greater circle of humanity,
made him what he was in later life. It is through
this quality that we get continuity in him ; with-
out it, we cannot evade the insoluble problem of
two men, — two lives, — one following the other
with no visible link of connection between them ;
without it we have physically one creature, morally
and mentally two beings. If we reject this trait,
we throw away the only key which unlocks the
problem of the most singular life, taken from end
to end, which has ever been witnessed among men,
a life which many have been content to regard as
an unsolved enigma. But if we admit and really
perceive and feel the full force of this trait, devel-
oped in him in a degree probably unequalled in the
annals of men, then, besides the enlightenment
which it brings, we have the great satisfaction of
eliminating much of the disagreeableness attendant
upon his youthful days. Even the commonness
and painful coarseness of his foolish written ex-
pressions become actually an exponent of his chief
and crowning quality, his receptiveness and his
expression of humanity, — that is to say, of all the
humanity he then knew. At first he expressed

34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

what he could discern with the limited, inexpe-
rienced vision of the ignorant son of a wretched
vagrant pioneer; later he gave expression to the
humanity of a people engaged in a purpose physi-
cally and morally as vast and as grand as any enter-
prise which the world has seen. Thus, with perfect
fairness, without wrenching or misrepresentation or
sophistry, the ugliness of his youth ceases to be his
own and becomes only the presentation of a curious
social condition. In his youth he expressed a low
condition, in later life a noble one; at each period
he expressed correctly what he found. His day
and generation uttered itself through him. With
such thoughts, and from this point of view, it is
possible to contemplate Lincoln's early days, amid
all their degraded surroundings and influences and
unmarked by apparent antagonism or obvious
superiority on his part, without serious dismay.

CHAPTER II.

THE STAKT IN LIFE.

In Illinois during the years of Lincoln's boy-
hood the red man was retiring sullenly before the
fatal advance of the white man's frontier. Shoot-
ing, scalping, and plundering forays still occurred,
and in the self-complaisant reminiscences of the
old settlers of that day the merciless and mysteri-
ous savage is apt to lend to the narrative the lively
coloring of mortal danger.1 In the spring of 1832
a noted chief of the Sacs led a campaign of such
importance that it lives in history under the
dignified title of "the Black Hawk war." The
Indians gathered in numbers so formidable that
Governor Eeynolds issued a call for volunteers to
aid the national forces. Lincoln, left unemployed
by the failure of Offut, at once enlisted. The
custom then was, so soon as there were enough re-
cruits for a company, to elect a captain by vote.
The method was simple: each candidate stood at
some point in the field and the men went over to
one or another according to their several prefer-
ences. Three fourths of the company to which
Lincoln belonged ranged themselves with him, and

1 The Good Old Times in McLean County, passim.

36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

long afterward lie used to say that no other success
in life had given him such pleasure as did this one.
The company was attached to the Fourth Illinois
Eegiment, commanded by Colonel Samuel Thomp-
son, in the brigade of General Samuel Whiteside.
On April 27 they started for the scene of conflict,
and for many days endured much hardship of hun-
ger and rough marching. But thereby they es-
caped serious danger, for they were too fatigued
to go forward on May 12, when the cavalry battal-
ions rode out gallantly, recklessly, perhaps a little
stupidly, into ambush and death. It so happened
that Lincoln never came nearer to any engagement
than he did to this one of "Stillman's Eun;" so
that, in place of military glory, he had to be con-
tent with the reputation of being the best comrade
and story-teller at the camp fire. He had, how-
ever, an opportunity to do one honorable act : the
brief term of service of the volunteers expired on
May 27, and most of them eagerly hastened away
from an irksome task, without regard to the fact
that their services were still much needed, whereas
Lincoln and some other officers reenlisted as pri-
vates. They were made the "Independent Spy
Battalion" of mounted volunteers, were given
many special privileges, but were concerned in no
engagement, and erelong were mustered out of
service. Lincoln's certificate of discharge was
signed by Eobert Anderson, who afterward was in
command at Fort Sumter at the outbreak of the
rebellion. Thus, late in June, Lincoln was again

//72^WL-

-1AJQE ROBERT ANDERSON U.S'.A

J-

THE START IN LIFE. 37

a civilian in New Salem, and was passing from
war to politics.

Nomination by caucus had not yet been intro-
duced into Illinois,1 and any person who wished to
be a candidate for an elective office simply made
public announcement of the fact and then con-
ducted his campaign as best he could.2 On March
9, 1832, shortly before his enlistment, Lincoln
issued a manifesto, "To the People of Sangamon
County," in which he informed them that he
should run as a candidate for the State Legislature
at the autumn elections, and told them his political
principles.3 He was in favor of internal improve-
ments, such as opening roads, clearing streams,
building a railroad across Sangamon County, and
making the Sangamon Eiver straight and naviga-
ble. He advocated a usury law, and hazarded the
extraordinary argument that "in cases of extreme
necessity, there could always be means found to
cheat the law; while in all other cases it would
have its intended effect." A law ameliorated by
infractions is no uncommon thing, but this is per-
haps the only instance in which a law has been
befriended on the ground that it can be circum-

1 It was first advocated in 1835-36, and was adopted by slow de-
grees thereafter. Ford, Hist, of Illinois, 204.

2 Ibid., 201.

3 Lamon, 129, where is given the text of the manifesto ; Hern-
don, 101 ; N. and H., i. 101, 105 ; Holland, 53, says that after his
return from the Black Hawk campaign, Lincoln " was applied to "
to become a candidate, and that the " application was a great sur-
prise to him." This seems an obvious error, in view of the mani-
festo ; yet see Lamon, 122.

38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

vented. He believed that every man should "re-
ceive at least a moderate education." He depre-
cated changes in existing laws; for, he said, "con-
sidering the great probability that the framers of
those laws were wiser than myself, I should pre-
fer not meddling with them." The clumsy phrase-
ology of his closing paragraph coupled not badly a
frank avowal of ambition with an ingenuous expres-
sion of personal modesty. The principles thus set
forth were those of Clay and the Whigs, and at
this time the "best people" in Sangamon County
belonged to this party. The Democrats, on the
other hand, did not much concern themselves with
principles, but accepted General Jackson in place
thereof, as constituting in himself a party plat-
form. In the rough-and-tumble pioneer commun-
ity they could not do better, and for many years
they had controlled the State; indeed, Lincoln
himself had felt no small loyalty towards a presi-
dent who admirably expressed Western civilization.
Now, however, he considered himself "an avowed
Clay man,"1 and besides the internal improvement
system he spoke also for a national bank, and a
high protective tariff ; probably he knew very little
about either, but his partisanship was perfect, for
if there was any distinguishing badge of an anti-
Jackson Whig, it certainly was advocacy of a
national bank.

1 N. and H., i. 102. Lamon regards him as "a nominal Jack-
son man " in contradistinction to a " whole-hog Jackson man ; " as
" Whiggish " rather than actually a Whig. Lamon, 123, 126»

Itcliea hj HSHall JTen- ^otk

TEE START IN LIFE. 39

After his return from the "war," Lincoln set
about electioneering with a good show of energy.
He hardly anticipated success, but at least upon
this trial trip he expected to make himself known
to the people and to gain useful experience. He
"stumped " his own county thoroughly, and is said
to have made speeches which were blunt, crude,
and inartificial, but not displeasing to his audi-
ences. A story goes that once "a general fight"
broke out among his hearers, and one of his friends
was getting roughly handled, whereupon Lincoln,
descending from the rostrum, took a hand in the
affray, tossed one of the assailants "ten or twelve
feet, easily," and then continued his harangue.
Yet not even thus could he win, and another was
chosen over his head. He had, however, more
reason to be gratified than disappointed with the
result; for, though in plain fact he was a raw and
unknown youngster, he stood third upon a list of
eight candidates, receiving 657 votes; and out of
208 votes cast in his own county, he scored 205. a
In this there was ample encouragement for the
future.

The political campaign being over, and legisla-
tive functions postponed, Lincoln was brought
face to face with the pecuniary problem. He con-
templated, not without approbation, the calling of
the blacksmith; but the chance to obtain a part
interest in a grocery "store" tempted him into an
occupation for which he was little fitted. He be-
1 Herndon, 105. But see N. and H., i. 109.

40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

came junior partner in the firm of Berry & Lin-
coln, which, by executing and delivering sundry
notes of hand, absorbed the whole grocery business
of the town. But Lincoln was hopelessly ineffi-
cient behind the counter, and Berry was a tippler.
So in a year's time the store "winked out," leav-
ing as its only important trace those ill-starred
scraps of paper by which it had been founded.
Berry "moved on "from the inconvenient neigh-
borhood, and soon afterward died, contributing
nothing to reduce the indebtedness. Lincoln
patiently continued to make payments during sev-
eral years to come, until he had discharged the
whole amount. It was only a few hundred dollars,
but to him it seemed so enormous that betwixt
jest and earnest he called it "the national debt."
So late as in 1848, when he was a member of the
House of ^Representatives at Washington, he ap-
plied part of his salary to this old indebtedness.

During this "store "-keeping episode he had be-
gun to study law, and while "keeping shop "he
was with greater diligence reading Blackstone and
such other elementary classics of the profession
as he could borrow. He studied with zeal and
became absorbed in his books. Perched upon
a woodpile, or lying under a tree with his feet
thrust upwards against the trunk and "grinding
around with the shade," he caused some neighbors
to laugh uproariously, and others to say that he
was daft. In fact, he was in grim earnest, and
held on his way with much persistence.

THE START IN LIFE. 41

May 7, 1833, Lincoln was commissioned as post-
master at New Salem. His method of distribut-
ing the scanty mail was to put all the letters in
his hat, and to hand them out as he happened to
meet the persons to whom they were addressed.
The emoluments could hardly have gone far
towards the discharge of "the national debt." His
incumbency in this office led to a story worth tell-
ing. When New Salem, and by necessity also the
post-office, like the grocery shop, "winked out," in
1836, there was a trifling balance of sixteen or
eighteen dollars due from Lincoln to the govern-
ment. Several years afterward, when he was prac-
ticing law in Springfield, the government agent
at last appeared to demand a settlement. Lincoln
went to his trunk and drew forth "an old blue
sock with a quantity of silver and copper coin tied
up in it," the identical bits of money which he had
gathered from the people at New Salem, and
which, through many days of need in the long in-
tervening period, he had not once touched.

Fortunately an occupation now offered itself
which was more lucrative, and possessed also the
valuable quality of leaving niches of leisure for
the study of the law. The mania for speculation
in land had begun in Illinois; great tracts were
being cut up into "town lots," and there was as
lively a market for real estate as the world has
ever seen. The official surveyor of the county,
John Calhoun, had more work than he could do,
and offered to appoint Lincoln as a deputy. A

42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

little study made him competent for the work,
which he performed for some time with admirable
accuracy, if the stories are to be believed. But
he had not long enjoyed the mild prosperity of
this new career ere an untoward interruption came
from a creditor of the extinct grocery firm. This
man held one of the notes representing "the
national debt," and now levied execution upon
Lincoln's horse and surveying instruments. Two
friends, however, were at hand in this hour of need,
and Bolin Greene and James Short are gratefully
remembered as the men who generously furnished,
in that actual cash which was so scarce in Illinois,
the sums of one hundred and twenty-five dollars
and one hundred and twenty dollars respectively,
to redeem these essential implements of Lincoln's
business.

The summer of 1834 found Lincoln again a can-
didate for the legislature. He ran as a Whig,
but he received and accepted offers of aid from the
Democrats, and their votes swelled the flattering
measure of his success. It has usually been stated
that he led the four successful candidates, the poll
standing: Lincoln, 1,376; Dawson, 1,370; Car-
penter, 1,170; Stuart, 1,164. But Mr. Herndon
adduces evidence that Dawson's number was 1,390,
whereby Lincoln is relegated to the second place.
Holland tells us that he "shouldered his pack and
on foot trudged to Yandalia, then the capital of
the State, about a hundred miles, to make his en-
trance into public life." But the correcting pen

c&Lst^

t/'sv^^ Aw^c/^

■ (*%'6~U-* A^^y

THE START IN LIFE. 43

of the later biographer interferes with this dra-
matic incident also. For it seems that after the
result of the election was known Lincoln visited a
friend, Coleman Smoot, and said : " Did you vote
forme?" " I did," replied Smoot. "Then," said
Lincoln, "you must lend me two hundred dollars ! "
This seemed a peculiar sequitur, for ordinary polit-
ical logic would have made any money that was to
pass between voter and candidate move the other
way. Yet Smoot accepted the consequence en-
tailed in part by his own act, and furnished the
money, whereby Lincoln was able to purchase a
new suit of clothes and to ride in the stage to
Vandalia.

The records of this legislature show nothing
noteworthy. Lincoln was very inappropriately
placed on the Committee on Public Accounts and
Expenditures; also it is recorded that he intro-
duced a resolution to obtain for the State a part of
the proceeds of the public lands sold within it.
What has chiefly interested the chroniclers is, that
at this session he first saw Stephen A. Douglas,
then a lobbyist, and said of him: "He is the least
man I ever saw." Lincoln's part seems to have
been rather that of an observer than of an actor.
The account given is that he was watching, learn-
ing, making acquaintances, prudently preparing
for future success, rather than endeavoring to seize
it too greedily. In fact, there is reason to believe
that his thoughts were intent on far other matter
than the shaping of laws and statutes. For to this

44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

period belongs the episode of Ann Rutledge. The
two biographers whose personal knowledge is the
best regard this as the one real romance of Lin-
coln's life. Heretofore he had held himself shyly
aloof from women's society, but this maiden won
his heart. She comes before posterity amid a
glamour of rhetorical description, which attributes
to her every grace of form and feature, every charm
of character and intellect. She was but a school-
girl of seventeen years when two men became her
lovers ; a year or more afterward she became en-
gaged to one of them, but before they could be
married, he made a somewhat singular excuse for
going to New York on family affairs. His absence
was prolonged and his letters became few. People
said that the girl had been deceived, and Lincoln
began to hope that the way was clearing for him.
But under the prolonged strain Miss Rutledge 's
health broke down, and on August 25, 1835, she
died of brain fever. Lincoln was allowed to see
her as she lay near her end. The effect upon him
was grievous. Many declared him crazy, and his
friends feared that he might go so far as to take
his own life ; they watched him closely, and one of
them at last kindly took him away from the scene
of his sufferings for a while, and bore him constant
and cheering company. In time the cloud passed,
but it seems certain that on only one or two other
occasions in his life did that deep melancholy,
which formed a permanent background to his tem-
perament, take such overmastering, such alarming,

THE START IN LIFE. 45

and merciless possession of him. He was afflicted
sorely with a constitutional tendency to gloom,
and the evil haunted him all his life long. Like a
dark fog-bank it hung, always dull and threaten-
ing, on the verge of his horizon, sometimes rolling
heavily down upon him, sometimes drawing off into
a more or less remote distance, but never wholly
disappearing. Every one saw it in his face and
often felt it in his manner, and few pictures of him
have been made so bad as not in some degree to
present it. The access of it which was brought
on by this unhappy love affair was somewhat odd
and uncouth in its manifestations, but was so gen-
uine and sincere that one feels that he was truly
undergoing the baptism of a great sorrow.

At no other point is there more occasion to note
this trait of character, which presents a curious
and interesting subject for study. Probably no
exhaustive solution is possible. One wanders off
into the mystery of human nature, loses his way in
the dimness of that which can be felt but cannot
be expressed, and becomes aware of even dimmer
regions beyond in which it is vain to grope. It is
well known that the coarse and rough side of life
among the pioneers had its reaction in a reserved
and at times morose habit, nearly akin to sadness,
at least in those who frequented the wilderness ; it
was the expression of the influence of the vast,
desolate and lonely nature amid which they passed
their lives. It is true that Lincoln was never a
backwoodsman, and never roved alone for long

46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

periods among the shadowy forests and the limit-
less prairies, so that their powerful and weird in-
fluences, though not altogether remote, never bore
upon him in full force; yet their effect was every-
where around him, and through others he imbibed
it, for his disposition was sensitive and sympa-
thetic for such purposes. That there was also a
simple prosaic physical inducement cannot be de-
nied. Hardship and daily discomfort in all the
arrangements of life counted for something, and
especially so the bad food, greasy, unwholesome,
horribly cooked, enough to afflict an ostrich with
the blue devils of dyspepsia. The denizen of the
town devoured messes vastly worse than the simple
meal of the hunter and trapper, and did not coun-
teract the ill effect by hard exercise in the free,
inspiring air. Such facts must be considered,
though they diminish the poetry which rhetori-
cians and sentimentalists have cast over the melan-
choly of Lincoln's temperament. Yet they fall
far short of wholly accounting for a gloom which
many have loved to attribute to the mysticism of a
great destiny, as though the awful weight of his
immense task was making itself felt in his strange,
brooding nature long years before any human
prophet could have forecast any part of that which
was to come. In this apparent vague conscious-
ness of the oppression of a great burden of toil,
duty, and responsibility, casting its shadow so far
before, there is something so fascinating to the
imagination of man, that we cannot quite forego

THE START IN LIFE. 47

it, or accept any explanation which would compel
us altogether to part with it. The shuddering awe
and terrible sense of fate, which the grandeur of
the Greek tragedies so powerfully expresses, come
to us when we contemplate this strange cloud
which never left Lincoln in any year after his ear-
liest youth, although some traits in his character
seemed often incomprehensibly to violate it, and
like rebellious spirits, to do outrage to it, while,
in fact, they only made it the more striking, pic-
turesque, and mysterious. But, after all explana-
tions have been made, the conclusion must be that
there is no one and only thread to guide us through
the labyrinth to the heart of this singular trait,
and each of us must follow that which his own na-
ture renders intelligible or congenial for him. To
us, who know the awful closing acts of his life-
drama, it seems so appropriate that there should
be an impressive unity, and so an inevitable back-
ward influence working from the end towards the
beginning, that we cannot avoid, nor would avoid,
an instinctive belief that an occult moral and men-
tal condition already existed in the years of Lin-
coln's life which we are now observing, although
the profound cause of that condition lay wholly in
the future, in the years which were still far away.
There is a charm in the very unreason and mysti-
cism of such a faith, and mankind will never quite
fail to fancy, if not actually to believe, that the
life which Lincoln had to live in the future
wrought in some inexplicable way upon the life

48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

which he was living in the present. The explana-
tion is not more strange than the enigma.

Keturning now to the narrative, an unpleasant
necessity is encountered. It must be confessed
that the atmosphere of romance which lingers
around this love-tale of the fair and sweet Ann
Rutledge, so untimely taken away, is somewhat
attenuated by the fact that only some fifteen
months rolled by after she was laid in the ground
before Lincoln was again intent upon matrimony.
In the autumn of 1836 Miss Mary Owens, of Ken-
tucky, appeared in New Salem, — a comely lass,
with "large blue eyes," "fine trimmings," and a
long and varied list of attractions. Lincoln imme-
diately began to pay court to her, but in an un-
gainly and morbid fashion. It is impossible to
avoid feeling that his mind was not yet in a natural
and healthy condition. While offering to marry
her, he advised her not to have him. Upon her
part she found him "deficient in those little links
which make up the chain of woman's happiness."
So she would none of him, but wedded another and
became the mother of some Confederate soldiers.
Lincoln did not suffer on this second occasion as
he had done on the first; and in the spring of
1838 he wrote upon the subject one of the most
unfortunate epistles ever penned, in which he
turned the whole affair into coarse and almost ri-
bald ridicule. In fact he seems as much out of
place in dealing with women and with love, as he
was in place in dealing with politicians and with

TEE START IN LIFE. 49

politics, and it is pleasant to return from the
former to the latter topics.1

The spring of 1836 found Lincoln again nomi-
nating himself before the citizens of Sangamon
County, but for the last time. His party de-
nounced the caucus system as a "Yankee con-
trivance, intended to abridge the liberties of the
people; " but they soon found that it would be as
sensible to do battle with pikes and bows after the
invention of muskets and cannon, as to continue
to oppose free self -nomination to the Jacksonian
method of nomination by convention. In enjoying
this last opportunity, not only of presenting him-
self, but also of constructing his own "platform,"
Lincoln published the following card : —

1 The whole story of these two love affairs is given at great
length by Herndon and by Lamon. Other biographers deal
lightly with these episodes. Nicolay and Hay scantly refer to
them, and, in their admiration for Mr. Lincoln, even permit them-
selves to speak of that most abominable letter to Mrs. Browning
as "grotesquely comic." (Vol. i. p. 192.) It is certainly true
that the revelations of Messrs. Herndon and Lamon are painful,
and in part even humiliating ; and it would be most satisfactory
to give these things the go-by. But this seems impossible ; if one
wishes to study and comprehend the character of Mr. Lincoln, the
strange and morbid condition in which he was for some years at
this time cannot possibly be passed over. It may even be said
that it would be unfair to him to do so ; and a truthful idea of
him, on the whole, redounds more to his credit than a maimed
and mutilated one, even though the mutilation seems to consist in
lopping off and casting out of sight a deformity. Psychologically,
perhaps physiologically, these episodes are interesting, and as aid-
ing a comprehension of Mr. Lincoln's nature, they are indispen-
sable ; but historically they are of no consequence, and I am glad
that the historical character of this work gives me the right to
dwell upon them lightly.

50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

New Salem, June 13, 1836.
To the Editor of the Journal : —

In your paper of last Saturday I see a communica-
tion over the signature of " Many Voters " in which
the candidates who are announced in the "Journal" are
called upon to " show their hands." Agreed. Here 's
mine.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government
who assist in hearing its burdens. Consequently, I go
for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay
taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of San-
gamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those
that support me.

While acting as their representative, I shall be gov-
erned by their will on all subjects upon which I have the
means of knowing what their will is ; and upon all others
I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best
advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go
for distributing the proceeds of the sales of public lands
to the several States to enable our State, in common with
others, to dig canals and construct railroads without bor-
rowing money and paying the interest on it.

If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall
vote for Hugh L. White for President.

Very respectfully, A. Lincoln.

The canvass was conducted after the usual fash-
ion, with stump-speaking, fighting and drinking.
Western voters especially fancied the joint debate
between rivals, and on such exciting occasions were
apt to come to the arbitrament of fists and knives.
But it is pleasant to hear that Lincoln calmed

Engraved by T B. Welch fi

mwc&w iljwscpw wmiirai^

i/J/JTyM/

TEE START IN LIFE. 51

rather than excited such affrays, and that once,
when Ninian W. Edwards climbed upon a table
and screamed at his opponent the lie direct, Lin-
coln replied by "so fair a speech" that it quelled
the discord. Henceforward he practiced a calm,
carefully-weighed, dispassionate style in present-
ing facts and arguments. Even if he cultivated it
from appreciation of its efficiency, at least his skill
in it was due to the fact that it was congenial to
his nature, and that his mind worked instinctively
along these lines. His mental constitution, his
way of thinking, were so honest that he always
seemed to be a man sincerely engaged in seeking
the truth, and who, when he believed that he had
found it, would tell it precisely as he saw it, and
tell it all. This was the distinguishing trait or
habit which differentiates Lincoln from too many
other political speakers and writers in the country.
Yet with it he combined the character of a practi-
cal politician and a stanch party man. No party
has a monopoly of truth and is always in the right ;
but Lincoln, with the advantage of being natu-
rally fair-minded to a rare degree, understood that
the best ingenuity is fairness, and that the second
best ingenuity is the appearance of fairness.

A pleasant touch of his humor illumined this
campaign. George Forquer, once a Whig but
now a Democrat and an office-holder, had lately
built for himself the finest house in Springfield,
and had decorated it with the first lightning-rod
ever seen in the neighborhood. One day, after

52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Forquer had been berating Lincoln as a young
man who must "be taken down," Lincoln turned
to the audience with a few words : " It is for you,
not for me, to say whether I am up or down. The
gentleman has alluded to my being a young man ; 1
I am older in years than I am in the tricks and
trades of politicians. I desire to live, and I desire
place and distinction as a politician; but I would
rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to
see the day when I should have to erect a light-
ning-rod to protect a guilty conscience from an
offended God."

There are other stories of this campaign, amus-
ing and characteristic of the region and the times,
but which there is not room to repeat. The result
of it was that Sangamon County, hitherto Demo-
cratic, was now won by the Whigs, and that Lin-
coln had the personal satisfaction of leading the
poll. The County had in the legislature nine repre-
sentatives, tall fellows all, not one of them stand-
ing less than six feet, so that they were nicknamed
"the Long Nine." Such was their authority, that
one of them afterward said : "All the bad or objec-
tionable laws passed at that session of the legisla-
ture, and for many years afterward, were charge-
able to the management and influence of the
'Long Nine.'" This was a damning confession,

1 It is amusing to compare this Western oratory with the fa-
mous outburst of the younger Pitt which he opened with those
familiar words : " The atrocious crime of being a young man
which the honorable gentleman has with such spirit and decency
charged upon me," etc., etc.

Hthir.irr.l b\ J Pc>/.\ ,-in-/,//<' .

WILLIAM PITT

/wmsa/

I'luln tin Sup, rinteoAaiLze oE the Sonelyfor the Diffusion, of Useful Efioowledge.

THE START IN LIFE. 53

for the "bad and objectionable" laws of that ses-
sion were numerous. A mania possessed the peo-
ple. The whole State was being cut up into towns
and cities and house-lots, so that town-lots were
said to be the only article of export.1 A system
of internal improvements at the public expense was
pushed forward with incredible recklessness. The
State was to be "gridironed" with thirteen hun-
dred miles of railroad; the courses of the rivers
were to be straightened; and where nature had
neglected to supply rivers, canals were to be dug.
A loan of twelve millions of dollars was authorized,
and the counties not benefited thereby received
gifts of cash. The bonds were issued and sent to
the bankers of New York and of Europe, and work
was vigorously begun. The terrible financial
panic of 1837 ought to have administered an early
check to this madness. But it did not. Resolu-
tions of popular conventions instructed legislators
to institute "a general system of internal improve-
ments," which should be "commensurate with the
wants of the people;" and the law-givers obeyed
as implicitly as if each delegate was lighting his
steps by an Aladdin's lamp.

With this mad current Lincoln swam as wildly
and as ignorantly as did any of his comrades. He
was absurdly misplaced as a member of the Com-
mittee on Finance. Never in his life did he show
the slightest measure of "money sense." He had,

1 For the whole history of the rise, progress, and downfall of
this mania, see Ford, Hist, of Illinois, ch. vi.

54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

however, declared his purpose to be governed by
the will of his constituents in all matters in which
he knew that will, and at this time he apparently
held the American theory that the multitude prob-
ably possesses the highest wisdom, and that at
any rate the majority is entitled to have its way.
Therefore, in this ambitious enterprise of putting
Illinois at the very forefront of the civilized world
by an outburst of fine American energy, his ardor
was as warm as that of the warmest, and his intel-
ligence was as utterly misled as that of the most
ignorant. He declared his ambition to be "the
DeWitt Clinton of Illinois." After the inevitable
crash had come, amid the perplexity of general
ruin and distress, he honestly acknowledged that
he had blundered very badly. Nevertheless, no
vengeance was exacted of him by the people ; which
led Governor Ford to say that it is safer for a pol-
itician to be wrong with his constituents than to
be right against them, and to illustrate this pro-
found truth by naming Lincoln among the " spared
monuments of popular wrath."

"The Long Nine " had in this legislature a task
peculiarly their own : to divide Sangamon County,
and to make Springfield instead of Vandalia the
State capital. Amid all the whirl of the legisla-
tion concerning improvements Lincoln kept this
especial purpose always in view. It is said that
his skill was infinite, and that he never lost heart.
He gained the reputation of being the best "log-
roller " in the legislature, and no measure got the

THE START IN LIFE. 55

support of the "Long Nine" without a contract
for votes to be given in return for the removal of
the State capital. It is unfortunate that such
methods should enjoy the prestige of having been
conspicuously practiced by Abraham Lincoln, but
the evidence seems to establish the fact. That
there was anything objectionable in the skillful
performance of such common transactions as the
trading of votes probably never occurred to him,
being a professional politician, any more than it
did to his constituents, who triumphed noisily in
this success, and welcomed their candidates home
with great popular demonstrations of approval.1

A more agreeable occurrence at this session is
the position taken by Lincoln concerning slavery,
a position which was looked upon with extreme
disfavor in those days in that State, and which he
voluntarily assumed when he was not called upon
to act or commit himself in any way concerning
the matter. During the session sundry resolutions
were passed, disapproving abolition societies and
doctrines, asserting the sacredness of the right of
property in slaves in the slave States, and alleging
that it would be against good faith to abolish slav-
ery in the District of Columbia without the consent
of the citizens of the District. Two days before
the end of the session, March 3, 1837, Lincoln

1 Ford, Hist, of Illinois, 186 ; Lamon, 198-201 ; Hemdon, 176,
180. N. and H., i. 137-139, endeavor to give a different color to
this transaction, but they make out no case as against the state-
ments of writers who had such opportunities to know the truth as
had Gov. Ford, Lamon and Herndon.

56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

introduced a strenuous protest. It bore only one
signature besides his own, and doubtless this fact
was fortunate for Lincoln, since it probably pre-
vented the document from attracting the attention
and resentment of a community which, at the
time, by no means held the opinion that there was
either "injustice" or "bad policy" in the great
"institution" of the South. It was within a few
months after this very time that the atrocious per-
secution and murder of Love joy took place in the
neighboring town of Alton.

In such hours as he could snatch from politics
and bread-winning Lincoln had continued to study
law, and in March, 1837, he was admitted to the
bar. He decided to establish himself in Spring-
field, where certainly he deserved a kindly wel-
come in return for what he had done towards mak-
ing it the capital. It was a little town of only
between one and two thousand inhabitants ; but to
Lincoln it seemed a metropolis. "There is a
great deal of flourishing about in carriages here,"
he wrote; there were also social distinctions, and
real aristocrats, who wore ruffled shirts, and even
adventured "fair top-boots" in the "unfathom-
able " mud of streets which knew neither sidewalks
nor pavements.

Lincoln came into the place bringing all his
worldly belongings in a pair of saddle-bags. He
found there John T. Stuart, his comrade in the
Black Hawk campaign, engaged in the practice of
the law. The two promptly arranged a partner-

THE START IN LIFE. 57

ship. But Stuart was immersed in that too com-
mon mixture of law and politics in which the
former jealous mistress is apt to take the tradi-
tional revenge upon her half-hearted suitor. Such
happened in this case; and these two partners,
both making the same blunder of yielding imper-
fect allegiance to their profession, paid the inevi-
table penalty; they got perhaps work enough in
mere point of quantity, but it was neither interest-
ing nor lucrative. Such business, during the four
years which he passed with Stuart, did not wean
Lincoln from his natural fondness for matters
political. At the same time he was a member of
sundry literary gatherings and debating societies.
Such of his work as has been preserved does not
transcend the ordinary productions of a young
man trying his wings in clumsy flights of oratory ;
but he had the excuse that the thunderous de-
clamatory style was then regarded in the West as
the only true eloquence. He learned better, in
course of time, and so did the West; and it was
really good fortune that he passed through the
hobbledehoy period in the presence of audiences
whose taste was no better than his own.

Occasionally amid the tedium of these high-flown
commonplaces there opens a fissure through which
the inner spirit of the man looks out for an instant.
It is well known that Lincoln was politically am-
bitious ; his friends knew it, his biographers have
said it, he himself avowed it. Now and again, in
these early days, when his horizon could hardly

58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

have ranged beyond the State Legislature and the
lower house of Congress, he uttered some sentences
which betrayed longings of a high moral grade,
and indicated that office and power were already
regarded by him as the opportunities for great
actions. Strenuous as ought to be the objection
to that tone in speaking of Lincoln which seems
to proceed from beneath the sounding-board of the
pulpit, and which uses him as a Sunday-school
figure to edify a piously admiring world, yet it
certainly seems a plain fact that his day-dreams at
this period foreshadowed the acts of his later years,
and that what he pleased himself with imagining
was not the acquirement of official position but the
achievement of some great benefit for mankind.
He did not, of course, expect to do this as a phil-
anthropist; for he understood himself sufficiently
to know that his road lay in the public service.
Accordingly he talks not as Clarkson or Wilber-
force, but as a public man, of "emancipating
slaves," of eliminating slavery and drunkenness
from the land; at the same time he speaks thus
not as a politician shrewdly anticipating the com-
ing popular impulse, but as one desiring to stir
that impulse. When he said, in his manifesto in
1832, that he had "no other ambition so great as
that of being truly esteemed by his fellow-men,"
he uttered words which in the mouths of most poli-
ticians have the irritating effect of the dreariest and
cheapest of platitudes; but he obviously uttered
them with the sincerity of a deep inward ambition,

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THE START IN LIFE. 59

that kind of an ambition which is often kept sacred
from one's nearest intimates. Many side glimpses
show him in this light, and it seems to be the gen-
uine and uncolored one.

In 1838 Lincoln was again elected a member of
the lower house of the legislature, and many are
the amusing stories told of the canvass. It was in
this year that he made sudden onslaught on the
demagogue Dick Taylor, and, opening with a sud-
den jerk the artful colonel's waistcoat, displayed a
glittering wealth of jewelry hidden temporarily
beneath it. There is also the tale of his friend
Baker haranguing a crowd in the store beneath
Lincoln ' s office. The audience differed with Baker,
and was about to punish him severely for the differ-
ence, when Lincoln dangled down through a trap-
door in the ceiling, intimated his intention to share
in the fight if there was to be one, and brought
the audience to a more pacific frame of mind.
Such amenities of political debate at least tested
some of the qualities of the individual. The Whig-
party made him their candidate for the speakership
and he came within one vote of being elected.1
He was again a member of the Finance Committee ;
but financiering by those wise law-givers was no
longer so lightsome and exuberant a task as it had
been. The hour of reckoning had come; and the
business proved to be chiefly a series of humiliat-
ing and futile efforts to undo the follies of the

1 N. and H., i. 160; Holland, 74; Lamon, 212; but see Hern-
don, 193.

60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

preceding two and a half years. Lincoln shared
in this disagreeable labor, as he had shared in the
mania which had made it necessary. He admitted
that he was "no financier," and gave evidence of
the fact by submitting a bill which did not deserve
to be passed, and was not. It can, however, be
said for him that he never favored repudiation, as
some of his comrades did.

In 1840 1 Lincoln was again elected, again was
the nominee of the Whig party for the speakership,
and again was beaten by Ewing, the Democratic
candidate, who mustered 46 votes against 36 for
Lincoln. This legislature held only one session,
and apparently Holland's statement, that "no im-
portant business of general interest was trans-
acted," is a fair summary. Lincoln did only one
memorable thing, and that unfortunately was dis-
creditable. In a close and exciting contest, he,
with two other Whigs, jumped out of the window
in order to break a quorum. It is gratifying to
hear from the chronicler of the event, who was one
of the parties concerned, that "Mr. Lincoln always
regretted that he entered into that arrangement, as
he deprecated everything that savored of the revo-
lutionary."2

The year 1840 was made lively throughout the

1 For the story of The Skinning of Thomas, belonging to this
campaign, see Herndon, 197 ; Lamon, 231 ; and for the Radford
story, see N. and H., i. 172 ; Lamon, 230.

2 Lamon, 216, 217. N. and H., i. 162, speak of " a number " of
the members, among whom Lincoln was "prominent," making
this exit ; but there seem to have been only two besides him.

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THE START IN LIFE. 61

country by the spirited and rollicking campaign
which the Whigs made on behalf of General Har-
rison. In that famous struggle for "Tippecanoe
and Tyler too," the log cabin, hard cider, and the
'coon skin were the popular emblems which seemed
to lend picturesqueness and enthusiasm and a kind
of Western spirit to the electioneering everywhere
in the land. In Illinois Lincoln was a candidate
on the Whig electoral ticket, and threw himself
with great zeal into the congenial task of " stump-
ing " the State. Douglas was doing the same duty
on the other side, and the two had many encoun-
ters. Of Lincoln's speeches only one has been pre-
served,1 and it leads to the conclusion that nothing
of value was lost when the others perished. The
effusion was in the worst style of the effervescent
and exuberant school of that region and generation.
Nevertheless, it may have had the greatest merit
which oratory can possess, in being perfectly
adapted to the audience to which it was addressed.
But rhetoric could not carry Illinois for the Whigs ;
the Democrats cast the vote of the State.
1 N. and H., i. 173-177.

CHAPTER III.

LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS.

Collaterally with law and politics, Lincoln
was at this time engaged with that almost grotesque
courtship which led to his marriage. The story is
a long and strange one ; in its best gloss it is not
agreeable, and in its worst version it is exceed-
ingly disagreeable. In any form it is inexplica-
ble, save so far as the apparent fact that his mind
was somewhat disordered can be taken as an ex-
planation. In 1839 Miss Mary Todd, who had
been born in Lexington, Kentucky, December 13,
1818, came to Springfield to stay with her sister,
Mrs. Mnian W. Edwards. The Western bio-
graphers describe her as "gifted with rare talents,"
as "high-bred, proud, brilliant, witty," as "aris-
tocratic " and "accomplished," and as coming from
a "long and distinguished ancestral line." Later
in her career critics with more exacting standards
gave other descriptions. There is, however, no
doubt that in point of social position and acquire-
ments she stood at this time much above Lincoln.

Upon Lincoln's part it was a peculiar wooing, a
series of morbid misgivings as to the force of his
affection, of alternate ardor and coldness, advances

LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 63

and withdrawals, and every variety of strange lan-
guage and freakish behavior. In the course of it,
oddly enough, his omnipresent competitor, Doug-
las, crossed his path, his rival in love as well as in
politics, and ultimately outstripped by him in each
alike. After many months of this queer uncertain
zigzag progress, it was arranged that the marriage
should take place on January 1, 1841. At the
appointed hour the company gathered, the supper
was set out, and the bride, "bedecked in veil and
silken gown, and nervously toying with the flowers
in her hair," according to the graphic description
of Mr. Herndon, sat in her sister's house awaiting
the coming of her lover. She waited, but he came
not, and soon his friends were searching the town
for him. Towards morning they found him.
Some said that he was insane ; if he was not, he
was at least suffering from such a terrible access
of his constitutional gloom that for some time to
come it was considered necessary to watch him
closely. His friend Speed took him away upon a
long visit to Kentucky, from which he returned in
a much improved mental condition, but soon again
came under the influence of Miss Todd's attrac-
tions.

The memory of the absurd result of the recent
effort at marriage naturally led to the avoidance of
publicity concerning the second undertaking. So
nothing was said till the last moment; then the
license was procured, a few friends were hastily
notified, and the ceremony was performed, all

64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

within a few hours, on November 4, 1842. A
courtship marked by so many singularities was in-
evitably prolific of gossip; and by all this tittle-
tattle, in which it is absolutely impossible to sepa-
rate probably a little truth from much fiction, the
bride suffered more than the groom. Among
other things it was asserted that Lincoln at last
came to the altar most reluctantly. One says that
he was "pale and trembling, as if being driven to
slaughter; " another relates that the little son of a
friend, noticing that his toilet had been more care-
fully made than usual, asked him where he was
going, and that he gloomily responded : " To hell,
I suppose." Probably enough, however, these
anecdotes are apocryphal; for why the proud and
high - tempered Miss Todd should have held so
fast to an unwilling lover, who had behaved so
strangely and seemed to offer her so little, is a
conundrum which has been answered by no better
explanation than the very lame one, that she fore-
saw his future distinction. It was her misfortune
that she failed to make herself popular, so that no
one has cared in how disagreeable or foolish a
position any story places her. She was charged
with having a sharp tongue, a sarcastic wit, and a
shrewish temper, over which perilous traits she
had no control. It is related that her sister, Mrs.
Edwards, opposed the match, from a belief that
the two were utterly uncongenial, and later on this
came to be the accepted belief of the people at
large. That Mrs. Lincoln often severely harassed

LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 65

her husband always has been, and always will be
believed. One would gladly leave the whole topic
veiled in that privacy which ought always to be
accorded to domestic relations which are supposed
to be only imperfectly happy ; but his countrymen
have not shown any such respect to Mr. Lincoln,
and it no longer is possible wholly to omit mention
of a matter about which so much has been said and
written. Moreover, it has usually been supposed
that the influence of Mrs. Lincoln upon her hus-
band was unceasing and powerful, and that her
moods and her words constituted a very important
element in his life.1

Another disagreeable incident of this period
was the quarrel with James A. Shields. In the
summer of 1842 sundry coarse assaults upon

1 Lamon, pp. 238-252, tells the story of Lincoln's marriage at
great length, sparing nothing ; he liberally sets forth the gossip
and the stories ; he quotes the statements of witnesses who knew
both parties at the time, and he gives in full much correspondence.
The spirit and the letter of his account find substantial corrobora-
tion in the narrative of Herndon, pp. 206-231. So much original
material and evidence of acquaintances have been gathered by
these two writers, and their own opportunities of knowing the
truth were so good, that one seems not at liberty to reject the
substantial correctness of their version. Messrs. Nicolay and Hay,
vol. i. ch. 11, give a narrative for the most part in their own
language. Their attempt throughout to mitigate all that is dis-
agreeable is so obvious, not only in substance but in the turn of
every phrase, that it is impossible to accept their chapter as a
picture either free from obscurity or true in color, glad as one
might be to do so. Arnold, pp. 68, 72, and Holland, p. 90, simply
mention the marriage, and other biographers would have done
well to imitate this forbearance ; but too much has been said to
leave this course now open.

66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Shields, attributed in great part, or wholly, to the
so-called trenchant and witty pen of Miss Todd,
appeared in the Springfield "Journal." Lincoln
accepted the responsibility for them, received and
reluctantly accepted a challenge, and selected
broadswords as the weapons! "Friends," how-
ever, brought about an "explanation," and the
conflict was avoided. But ink flowed in place of
blood, and the newspapers were filled with a mass
of silly, grandiloquent, blustering, insolent, and
altogether pitiable stuff. All the parties con-
cerned were placed in a most humiliating light,
and it is gratifying to hear that Lincoln had at
least the good feeling to be heartily ashamed of
the affair, so that he "always seemed willing to
forget " it. But every veil which he ever sought to
throw over anything concerning himself has had
the effect of an irresistible provocation to drag the
subject into the strongest glare of publicity.1
All the while, amid so many distractions, Lin-

1 It is fair to say that my view of this "duel" is not that of
other writers. Lamon, p. 260, says that "the scene is one of
transcendent interest." Herndon, p. 260, calls it a "serio-comic
affair." Holland, pp. 87-89, gives a brief, deprecatory account
of what he calls "certainly a boyish affair." Arnold, pp. 69-
72, treats it simply enough, but puts the whole load of the ridi-
cule upon Shields. Nicolay and Hay, vol. i. ch. 12, deal with it
gravely, and in the same way in which, in the preceding chapter,
they deal with the marriage ; that is to say, they eschew the pro-
duction of original documents and, by their own gloss, make a
good story for Lincoln and a very bad one for Shields ; they speak
lightly of the " ludicrousness " of the affair. To my mind the
opinion which Lincoln himself held is far more correct than that
expressed by any of his biographers.

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LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 67

coin was seeking a livelihood at the bar. On
April 14, 1841, a good step was taken by dissolv-
ing the partnership with Stuart and the establish-
ment of a new partnership with Stephen T. Logan,
lately Judge of the Circuit Court of the United
States, and whom Arnold calls "the head of the
bar at the capital." This gentleman, though not
averse to politics, was a close student, assiduous
in his attention to business, and very accurate and
methodical in his ways. Thus he furnished a
shining example of precisely the qualities which
Lincoln had most need to cultivate, and his in-
fluence upon Lincoln was marked and beneficial.
They continued together until September 20, 1843,
when they separated, and on the same day Lin-
coln, heretofore a junior, became the senior in a
new partnership with William H. Herndon. This
firm was never formally dissolved up to the day of
Lincoln's death.

When Lincoln was admitted to the bar the prac-
tice of the law was in a very crude condition in
Illinois. General principles gathered from a few
text-books formed the simple basis upon which
lawyers tried cases and framed arguments in im-
provised court-rooms. But the advance was rapid
and carried Lincoln forward with it. The raw
material, if the phrase may be pardoned, was ex-
cellent; there were many men in the State who
united a natural aptitude for the profession with
high ability, ambition and a progressive spirit.
Lincoln was brought in contact with them all,

68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

whether they rode his circuit or not, because the
federal courts were held only in Springfield.
Among them were Stephen A. Douglas, Lyman
Trumbull, afterward for a long while chairman of
the Judiciary Committee of the national Senate,
David Davis, afterward a senator, and an associate
justice of the Supreme Court of the United States;
O. H. Browning, Ninian W. Edwards, Edward
D. Baker, Justin Butterfield, Judge Logan, and
more. Precisely what position Lincoln occupied
among these men it is difficult to say with accu-
racy, because it is impossible to know just how
much of the praise which has been bestowed upon
him is the language of eulogy or of the brotherly
courtesy of the bar, and how much is a discriminat-
ing valuation of his qualities. That in the fore-
going list there were better and greater lawyers
than he is unquestionable; that he was primarily
a politician and only secondarily a lawyer is equally
beyond denial. He has been described also as " a
case lawyer," that is to say, a lawyer who studies
each case as it comes to him simply by and for it-
self, a method which makes the practitioner rather
than the jurist. That Lincoln was ever learned
in the science is hardly pretended. In fact it was
not possible that the divided allegiance which he
gave to his profession for a score of years could
have achieved such a result.1 But it is said, and

1 Serious practice only began with him when he formed his
partnership with Judge Logan in 1841 ; in 1860 his practice came
to an end ; in the interval he was for two years a member of Con-
gress.

68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

whether they rode his circuit or not, because the
federal courts were held only in Springfield.
Among them were Stephen A. Douglas, Lyman
Trumbull, afterward for a long while chairman of
the Judiciary Committee of the national Senate,
David Davis, afterward a senator, and an associate
justice of the Supreme Court of the United States;
O. H. Browning, Ninian "W. Edwards, Edward
D. Baker, Justin Butterfield, Judge Logan, and
more. Precisely what position Lincoln occupied
among these men it is difficult to say with accu-
racy, because it is impossible to know just how
much of the praise which has been bestowed upon
him is the language of eulogy or of the brotherly
courtesy of the bar, and how much is a discriminat-
ing valuation of his qualities. That in the fore-
going list there were better and greater lawyers
than he is unquestionable; that he was primarily
a politician and only secondarily a lawyer is equally
beyond denial. He has been described also as "a
case lawyer," that is to say, a lawyer who studies
each case as it comes to him simply by and for it-
self, a method which makes the practitioner rather
than the jurist. That Lincoln was ever learned
in the science is hardly pretended. In fact it was
not possible that the divided allegiance which he
gave to his profession for a score of years could
have achieved such a result.1 But it is said, and

1 Serious practice only began with him when he formed his
partnership with Judge Logan in 1841 ; in 1860 his practice came
to an end ; in the interval he was for two years a member of Con-

•

■*

LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 69

the well-known manner of his mental operations
makes it easy to believe, that his arguments had a
marvelous simplicity and clearness, alike in thought
and in expression. To these traits they owed their
great force; and a legal argument can have no
higher traits; fine-drawn subtlety is undeniably
an inferior quality. Noteworthy above all else
was his extraordinary capacity for statement; all
agree that his statement of his case and his presen-
tation of the facts and the evidence were so plain
and fair as to be far more convincing than the ar-
gument which was built upon them. Again it may
be said that the power to state in this manner is
as high in the order of intellectual achievement as
anything within forensic possibilities.

As an advocate Lincoln seems to have ranked
better than he did in the discussion of pure points
of law. When he warmed to his work his power
over the emotions of a jury was very great. A
less dignified but not less valuable capacity lay in
his humor and his store of illustrative anecdotes.
But the one trait, which all agree in attributing to
him and which above all others will redound to his
honor, at least in the mind of the layman, is, that
he was only efficient when his client was in the
right, and that he made but indifferent work in a
wrong cause. He was preeminently the honest
lawyer, the counsel fitted to serve the litigant who
was justly entitled to win. His power of lucid
statement was of little service when the real facts
were against him ; and his eloquence seemed para-

70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

lyzed when lie did not believe thoroughly that his
client had a just cause. He generally refused to
take cases unless he could see that as matter of
genuine right he ought to win them. People who
consulted him were at times bluntly advised to
withdraw from an unjust or a hard-hearted conten-
tion, or were bidden to seek other counsel. He
could even go the length of leaving a case, while
actually conducting it, if he became satisfied of
unfairness on the part of his client; and when a
coadjutor won a case from which he had withdrawn
in transitu, so to speak, he refused to accept any
portion of the fee. Such habits may not meet
with the same measure of commendation from pro-
fessional men1 which they will command on the
part of others; but those who are not members of
this ingenious profession, contemning the fine logic
which they fail to overcome, stubbornly insist
upon admiring the lawyer who refuses to subordi-
nate right to law. In this respect Lincoln ac-
cepted the ideals of laymen rather than the doc-
trines of his profession.2

In the presidential campaign of 1844, in which
Henry Clay was the candidate of the Whig party,

1 A story is told by Lamon, p. 321, which puts Lincoln in a
position absolutely indefensible by any sound reasoning1.

2 For accounts of Lincoln at the bar, as also for many illustra-
tive and entertaining* anecdotes to which the plan of this volume
does not permit space to be given, see Arnold, pp. 55-59, 66, 73,
84-91 ; Holland, 72, 73, 76-83, 89 ; Lamon, pp. 223-225, ch. xiii.
311-332 ; N. and H., 1, 167-171, 213-216, ch. xvii. 298-309 ; Hern-
don, 182-184, 186, 264-266, 306 n., 307-309, 312-319, 323-331,
ch. xL 332-360.

LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 71

Lincoln was nominated upon the Whig electoral
ticket. He was an ardent admirer of Clay and he
threw himself into this contest with great zeal.
Oblivious of courts and clients, he devoted himself
to " stumping'' Illinois and a part of Indiana.
When Illinois sent nine Democratic electors to
vote for James K. Polk, his disappointment was
bitter. All the members of the defeated party
had a peculiar sense of personal chagrin upon this
occasion, and Lincoln felt it even more than oth-
ers. It is said that two years later a visit to Ash-
land resulted in a disillusionment, and that his
idol then came down from its pedestal, or at least
the pedestal was made much lower.1

In March, 1843, Lincoln had hopes that the
Whigs would nominate him as their candidate for
the national House of Representatives. In the
canvass he developed some strength, but not quite
enough, and the result was somewhat ludicrous,
for Sangamon County made him a delegate to the
nominating convention with instructions to vote
for one of his own competitors, Colonel Edward
D. Baker, the gallant gentleman and brilliant
orator who fell at Ball's Bluff. The prize was
finally carried off by Colonel John J. Hardin, who
afterward died at Buena Vista. By a change of
election periods the next convention was held in
1844, and this time Lincoln publicly declined to
make a contest for the nomination against Colonel
Baker, who accordingly received it and was

1 Holland, 95 ; butter contra see Herndon, 271.

72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

elected. It has been said that an agreement was
made between Hardin, Baker, Lincoln, and Judge
Logan, whereby each should be allowed one term
in Congress, without competition on the part of
any of the others; but the story does not seem
altogether trustworthy, nor wholly corroborated
by the facts. Possibly there may have been a
courteous understanding between them. It has,
however, been spoken of as a very reprehensible
bargain, and Lincoln has been zealously defended
against the reproach of having entered into it.
Why, if indeed it ever was made, it had this ob-
jectionable complexion is a point in the inscruta-
ble moralities of politics which is not plain to those
uninitiated in these ethical mysteries.

In the year 1846 Lincoln again renewed his
pursuit of the coveted honor, as Holland very
properly puts it. Nothing is more absurd than
statements to the purport that he was "induced to
accept" the nomination, statements which he him-
self would have heard with honest laughter. Only
three years ago1 he had frankly written to a
friend: "Now, if you should hear any one say that
Lincoln don't want to go to Congress, I wish you,
as a personal friend of mine, would tell him you
have reason to believe he is mistaken. The truth
is I would [should] like to go very much." Now,
the opportunity being at hand, he spared no pains
to compass it. In spite of the alleged agreement
Hardin made reconnoissances in the district, which

1 March, 1843.

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LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 73

Lincoln met with counter-manifestations so vigor-
ous that on February 26 Hardin withdrew, and on
May 1 Lincoln was nominated. Against him the
Democrats set Peter Cartwright, the famous itin-
erant preacher of the Methodists, whose strenuous
and popular eloquence had rung in the ears of
every Western settler. Stalwart, aggressive, pos-
sessing all the qualities adapted to win the good-
will of such a constituency, the Apostle of the
West was a dangerous antagonist. But Lincoln
had political capacity in a rare degree. Foresight
and insight, activity and the power to organize and
to direct, were his. In this campaign his eye was
upon every one; individuals, newspaper editors,
political clubs, got their inspiration and their guid-
ance from him.1 Such thoroughness deserved and
achieved an extraordinary success; and at the
polls, in August, the district gave him a majority
of 1,511. In the latest presidential campaign it
had given Clay a majority of 914 ; and two years
later it gave Taylor a majority of 1,501. Sanga-
mon County gave Lincoln a majority of 690, the
largest given to any candidate from 1836 to 1850,
inclusive. Moreover, Lincoln was the only Whig
who secured a place in the Illinois delegation.

Though elected in the summer of 1846, it was
not until December 6, 1847, that the Thirtieth
Congress began its first session. Eobert C. Win-
throp was chosen Speaker of the House, by 110

1 By way of example of his methods, see letter to Herndon,
June 22, 1848, Lamon, 299.

74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

votes out of 218. The change in the political
condition was marked; in the previous House the
Democrats had numbered 142 and the Whigs only
75 ; in this House the Whigs were 116, the Demo-
crats 108. Among the members were John
Quincy Adams, Andrew Johnson, Alexander H.
Stephens, Howell Cobb, David Wilmot, Jacob
Collamer, Robert Toombs, with many more scarcely
less familiar names. The Mexican War was draw-
ing towards its close,1 and most of the talking
in Congress had relation to it. The whole Whig
party denounced it at the time, and the nation has
been more than half ashamed of it ever since. By
adroit manoeuvres Polk had forced the fight upon
a weak and reluctant nation, and had made to his
own people false statements as to both the facts
and the merits of the quarrel. The rebuke which
they had now administered, by changing the large
Democratic majority into a minority, "deserves,"
says von Hoist, "to be counted among the most
meritorious proofs of the sound and honorable feel-
ing of the American nation."2 But while the ad-
ministration had thus smirched the inception and
the whole character of the war with meanness and

1 The treaty of peace, subject to some amendments, was ratified
by the Senate March 10, 1848, and officially promulgated on
July 4.

2 Von Hoist, Const. Hist, of U. S., iii. 336. All historians are
pretty well agreed upon the relation of the Polk administration to
the Mexican war. But the story has never been so clearly and
admirably traced by any other as by von Hoist in the third vol-
ume of his history.

3, Sl.JA

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D.Apple ton & Co.

LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 75

dishonor, the generals and the army were winning
abundant glory for the national arms. Good
strategy achieved a series of brilliant victories,
and fortunately for the Whigs General Taylor
and General Scott, together with a large propor-
tion of the most distinguished regimental officers,
were of their party. This aided them essentially
in their policy, which was, to denounce the enter-
ing into the war but to vote all necessary supplies
for its vigorous prosecution.

Into this scheme of his party Lincoln entered
with hearty concurrence. A week after the House
met he closed a letter to his partner with the re-
mark : " As you are all so anxious for me to dis-
tinguish myself, I have concluded to do so before
long," and what he said humorously he probably
meant seriously. Accordingly he soon afterward 1
introduced a series of resolutions, which, under
the nickname of "The Spot Kesolutions," attracted
some attention. Quoting in his preamble sundry
paragraphs of the President's Message of May 11,
1846, to the purport that Mexico had "invaded
our territory," and had "shed the blood of our
citizens on our own soil," he then requested the
President to state "the spot " where these and other
alleged occurrences had taken place. His first
"little speech" was on "a post-office question of
no general interest; " and he found himself "about
as badly scared and no worse " than when he spoke
in court. So a little later, January 12, 1848, he

1 Dec. 22, 1847.

76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

ventured to call up his resolutions and to make
an elaborate speech upon them.1 It was not a very-
great or remarkable speech, but it was a good one,
and not conceived in the fervid and florid style
which defaced his youthful efforts ; he spoke sensi-
bly, clearly, and with precision of thought; he
sought his strength in the facts, and went in
straight pursuit of the truth ; his best intellectual
qualities were plainly visible. The resolutions
were not acted upon, and doubtless their actual
passage had never been expected; but they were a
good shot well placed ; and they were sufficiently
noteworthy to save Lincoln from being left among
the herd of the nobodies of the House.

In view of his future career, but for no other
reason, a brief paragraph is worth quoting. He
says : —

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and hav-
ing the power, have the right to rise up and shake
off the existing government, and form a new one
that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a
most sacred right, — a right which, we hope and
believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right
confined to cases in which the whole people of
an existing government may choose to exercise
it. Any portion of such people, that can, may
revolutionize, and make their own of so much of
the territory as they inhabit." This doctrine, so
comfortably applied to Texas in 1848, seemed un-
suitable for the Confederate States in 1861. But

1 Printed by Lamon, p. 282. See also Herndon, 277.

LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 77

possibly the point lay in the words, "having the
power," and "can," for the Texans "had the
power" and "could," and the South had it not
and could not; and so Lincoln's practical proviso
saved his theoretical consistency ; though he must
still have explained how either Texas or the South
could know whether they "had the power," and
"could," except by trial.

Lincoln's course concerning the war and the
administration did not please his constituents.
With most of the Whigs he voted for Ashmun's
amendment, which declared that the war had been
"unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced
by the President." But soon he heard that the
people in Springfield were offended at a step which
might weaken the administration in time of stress ;
and even if the President had transcended the
Constitution, they preferred to deny rather than
to admit the fact. When Douglas afterward
charged Lincoln with lack of patriotism, Lincoln
replied that he had not chosen to "skulk," and,
feeling obliged to vote, he had voted for "the
truth" rather than for "a lie."1 He remarked
also that he, with the Whigs generally, always
voted for the supply bills. He took and main-
tained his position with entire manliness and hon-
esty, and stated his principles with perfect clear-
ness, neither shading nor abating nor coloring by
any conciliatory or politic phrase. It was a ques-

1 Herndon, 281 ; see Letters given in full by Lamon, 291, 293,
295 (at 296) ; N. and H., i. 274.

78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

tion of conscience, and he met it point-blank.
Many of his critics remained dissatisfied, and it is
believed that his course cost the next Whig candi-
date in the district votes which he could not afford
to lose. It is true that another paid this penalty,
yet Lincoln himself would have liked well to take
his chance as the candidate. To those "who desire
that I should be reelected," he wrote to Herndon,
"I can say, as Mr. Clay said of the annexation of
Texas, that 'personally I would not object. ' . . .
If it should so happen that nobody else wishes to
be elected, I could not refuse the people the right
of sending me again. But to enter myself as a
competitor of others, or to authorize any one so to
enter me, is what my word and honor forbid." It
did so happen that Judge Logan, whose turn it
seemed to be, wished the nomination and received
it. He was, however, defeated, and probably paid
the price of Lincoln's scrupulous honesty.

In the canvassing of the spring of 1848 Lincoln
was an ardent advocate for the nomination of Gen-
eral Taylor as the Whig candidate for the presi-
dency ; for he appreciated how much greater was
the strength of the military hero, with all that
could be said against him, than was that of Mr.
Clay, whose destiny was so disappointingly non-
presidential. When the nomination went accord-
ing to his wishes, he entered into the campaign
with as much zeal as his congressional duties would
permit, — indeed, with somewhat an excess of zeal,
for he delivered on the floor of the House an

<a^y

D. APPLET'. iK A C?

LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 79

harangue in favor of the general which was little
else than a stump speech, admirably adapted for a
backwoods audience, but grossly out of place where
it was spoken. He closed it with an assault on
General Cass, as a military man, which was de-
signed to be humorous, and has, therefore, been
quoted with unfortunate frequency. So soon as
Congress adjourned he was able to seek a more
legitimate arena in New England, whither he went
at once and delivered many speeches, none of
which have been preserved.

Lincoln's position upon the slavery question in
this Congress was that of moderate hostility. In
the preceding Congress, the Twenty-ninth, the
famous Wilmot Proviso, designed to exclude slav-
ery from any territory which the United States
should acquire from Mexico, had passed the House
and had been killed in the Senate. In the Thirti-
eth Congress efforts to the same end were renewed
in various forms, always with Lincoln's favor.
He once said that he had voted for the principle
of the Wilmot Proviso "about forty-two times,"
which, if not an accurate mathematical computa-
tion, was a vivid expression of his stanch adher-
ence to the doctrine. At the second session Mr.
Lincoln voted against a bill to prohibit the slave
trade in the District of Columbia, because he did
not approve its form ; and then introduced another
bill, which he himself had drawn. This prohib-
ited the bringing slaves into the District, except
as household servants by government officials who

80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

were citizens of slave States; it also prohibited
selling them to be taken away from the District;
children born of slave mothers after January 1,
1850, were to be subject to temporary apprentice-
ship and finally to be made free ; owners of slaves
might collect from the government their full cash
value as the price of their freedom ; fugitive slaves
escaping into Washington and Georgetown were
to be returned ; finally the measure was to be sub-
mitted to popular vote in the District. This was
by no means a measure of abolitionist coloring,
although Lincoln obtained for it the support of
Joshua R. Giddings, who believed it "as good a
bill as we could get at this time," and was "will-
ing to pay for slaves in order to save them from
the Southern market." It recognized the right of
property in slaves, which the Abolitionists denied;
also it might conceivably be practicable, a charac-
teristic which rarely marked the measures of the
Abolitionists, who professed to be pure moralists
rather than practical politicians. From this first
move to the latest which he made in this great
business, Lincoln never once broke connection
with practicability. On this occasion he had ac-
tually succeeded in obtaining from Mr. Seaton,
editor of the "National Intelligencer " and mayor
of Washington, a promise of support, which gave
him a little prospect of success. Later, however,
the Southern Congressmen drew this influential
gentleman to their side, and thereby rendered the
passage of the bill impossible ; at the close of the

80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

were citizens of slave States; it also prohibited
selling them to be taken away from the District;
children born of slave mothers after January 1,
1850, were to be subject to temporary apprentice-
ship and finally to be made free; owners of slaves
might collect from the government their full cash
value as the price of their freedom ; fugitive slaves
escaping into Washington and Georgetown were
to be returned; finally the measure was to be sub-
mitted to popular vote in the District. This was
by no means a measure of abolitionist coloring,
although Lincoln obtained for it the support of
Joshua R. Giddings, who believed it "as good a
bill as we could get at this time," and was "will-
ing to pay for slaves in order to save them from
the Southern market." It recognized the right of
property in slaves, which the Abolitionists denied;
also it might conceivably be practicable, a charac-
teristic which rarely marked the measures of the
Abolitionists, who professed to be pure moralists
rather than practical politicians. From this first
move to the latest which he made in this great
business, Lincoln never once broke connection
with practicability. On this occasion he had ac-
tually succeeded in obtaining from Mr. Seaton,
editor of the "National Intelligencer " and mayor
of Washington, a promise of support, which gave
him a little prospect of success. Later, however,
the Southern Congressmen drew this influential
gentleman to their side, and thereby rendered the
passage of the bill impossible ; at the close of the

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LOVE; A DUEL; LAW, AND CONGRESS. 81

session it lay with the other corpses in that grave
called "the table."

When his term of service in Congress was over
Lincoln sought, but failed to obtain, the position
of Commissioner of the General Lands Office. He
was offered the governorship of the newly organ-
ized Territory of Oregon ; but this, controlled by
the sensible advice of his wife, he fortunately de-
clined.

CHAPTER IV.
NORTH AND SOUTH.

The Ordinance of 1787 established that slavery
should never exist in any part of that vast north-
western territory which had then lately been ceded
by sundry States to the Confederation. This Or-
dinance could not be construed otherwise than as
an integral part of the transaction of cession, and
was forever unalterable, because it represented in
a certain way a part of the consideration in a con-
tract, and was also in the nature of a declaration
of trust undertaken by the Congress of the Con-
federation with the granting States. The article
"was agreed to without opposition;" but almost
contemporaneously, in the sessions of that conven-
tion which framed the Constitution, debate waxed
hot upon the topic which was then seen to present
grave obstacles to union. It was true that many
of the wisest Southerners of that generation re-
garded the institution as a menacing misfortune;
they however could not ignore the fact that it was
a "misfortune" of that peculiar kind which was
endured with much complacency by those afflicted
by it; and it was equally certain that the great
body of slave-owners would resent any effort to

NORTH AND SOUTH. 83

relieve them of their burden. Hence there were
placed in the Constitution provisions in behalf of
slavery which involved an admission that the insti-
tution needed protection, and should receive it.
The idea of protection implied the existence of
hostility either of men or of circumstances, or of
both. Thus by the Ordinance and the Constitu-
tion, taken together, there was already indirectly
recognized an antagonism between the institutions,
interests, and opinions of the South and those of
the North.

Slowly this feeling of opposition grew. The
first definite mark of the growth was the struggle
over the admission of Missouri, in 1820. This
was settled by the famous "Compromise," embod-
ied in the Act of March 6, 1820, whereby the
people of the Territory of Missouri were allowed
to frame a State government, with no restriction
against slavery; but a clause also enacted that
slavery should never be permitted in any part of
the remainder of the public territory lying north
of the parallel of 36° 30'. By its efficiency dur-
ing thirty-four years of constantly increasing strain
this legislation was proved to be a remarkable po-
litical achievement; and as the people saw it per-
form so long and so well a service so vital they
came to regard it as only less sacred than the
Constitution itself. Even Douglas, who after-
ward led in repealing it, declared that it had an
"origin akin to the Constitution," and that it
was "canonized in the hearts of the American

84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

people as a sacred thing." Yet during the long
quietude which it brought, each section kept a
jealous eye upon the other; and especially was the
scrutiny of the South uneasy, for she saw ever more
and more plainly the disturbing truth that her in-
stitution needed protection. Being in derogation
of natural right, it was peculiarly dependent upon
artificial sustention; the South would not express
the condition in this language, but acted upon the
idea none the less. It was true that the North
was not aggressive towards slavery, but was ob-
serving it with much laxity and indifference; that
the crusading spirit was sleeping soundly, and
even the proselyting temper was feeble. But this
state of Northern feeling could not relieve the
South from the harassing consciousness that slav-
ery needed not only toleration, but positive pro-
tection at the hands of a population whose institu-
tions were naturally antagonistic to the slave idea.
This being the case, she must be alarmed at seeing
that population steadily outstripping her own in
numbers and wealth.1 Since she could not possi-
bly even hold this disproportion stationary, her
best resource seemed to be to endeavor to keep it
practically harmless by maintaining a balance of
power in the government. Thus it became un-
written law that slave States and free States must
be equal in number, so that the South could not

1 For a striking comparison of the condition of the South with
that of the North in 1850, see von Hoist's Const. Hist, of U. 8.,
v. 567-586.

NORTH AND SOUTH. 85

be outvoted in the Senate. This system was prac-
ticable for a while, yet not a very long while; for
the North was filling up that great northwestern
region, which was eternally dedicated to freedom,
and full-grown communities could not forever be
kept outside the pale of statehood. On the other
hand, apart from any question of numbers, the
South could make no counter-expansion, because
she lay against a foreign country. After a time,
however, Texas opportunely rebelled against Mex-
ico, and then the opportunity for removing this
obstruction was too obvious and too tempting to
be lost. A brief period of so-called independence
on the part of Texas was followed by the annexa-
tion of her territory to the United States,1 with
the proviso that from her great area might in the
future be cut off still four other States. Slavery
had been abolished in all Mexican territory, and
Texas had been properly a "free" country; but
in becoming a part of the United States she be-
came also a slave State.

Mexico had declared that annexation of Texas
would constitute a casus belli, yet she was wisely
laggard in beginning vindictive hostilities against
a power which could so easily whip her, and she
probably never would have done so had the United
States rested content with an honest boundary
line. But this President Polk would not do, and
by theft and falsehood he at last fairly drove the
Mexicans into a war, in which they were so exces-

1 December, 1845.

86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

sively beaten that the administration found itself
able to gather more plunder than it had expected.
By the treaty of peace the United States not only
extended unjustly the southwestern boundary of
Texas, but also got New Mexico and California.
To forward this result, Polk had asked the House
to place $2,000,000 at his disposal. Thereupon,
as an amendment to the bill granting this sum,
Wilmot introduced his famous proviso, prohibiting
slavery in any part of the territory to be acquired.
Repeatedly and in various shapes was the substance
of this proviso voted upon, but always it was voted
down. Though New Mexico had come out from
under the rule of despised Mexico as "free" coun-
try, a contrary destiny was marked out for it in its
American character. A plausible suggestion was
made to extend the sacred line of the Missouri
Compromise westward to the Pacific Ocean; and
very little of the new country lay north of that
line.

By all these transactions the South seemed to
be scoring many telling points in its game. They
were definite points, which all could see and esti-
mate ; yet a price, which was considerable, though
less definite, less easy to see and to estimate, had
in fact been paid for them; for the antagonism of
the rich and teeming North to the Southern institu-
tion and to the Southern policy for protecting it
had been spread and intensified to a degree which
involved a menace fully offsetting the Southern
territorial gain. One of the indications of this

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NORTH AND SOUTH. 87

state of feeling was the organization of the " Free
Soil " party.

Almost simultaneously with this important ad-
vancement of the Southern policy there occurred
an event, operative upon the other side, which cer-
tainly no statesman could have foreseen. Gold
was discovered in California, and in a few months
a torrent of immigrants poured over the land.
The establishment of an efficient government be-
came a pressing need. In Congress they debated
the matter hotly ; the friends of the Wilmot pro-
viso met in bitter conflict the advocates of the
westward extension of the line of 36° 30'.
Neither side could prevail, and amid intense ex-
citement the Thirtieth Congress expired. For the
politicians this was well enough, but for the Cali-
fornians organization was such an instant necessity
that they now had to help themselves to it. So
they promptly elected a Constitutional Convention,
which assembled on September 1, 1849, and ad-
journed on October 13. Though this body held
fifteen delegates who were immigrants from slave
States, yet it was unanimous in presenting a Con-
stitution which prohibited slavery, and which was
at once accepted by a popular vote of 12,066 yeas
against 811 nays.

Great then was the consternation of the South-
ern leaders when Californian delegates appeared
immediately upon the assembling of the Thirty-
first Congress, and asked for admission beneath
this unlooked-for "free" charter of statehood.

88 ABE AH AM LINCOLN.

The shock was aggravated by the fact that New
Mexico, actually instigated thereto by the slave-
holding President Taylor himself, was likely to
follow close in the Californian foot-tracks. The
admission of Texas had for a moment disturbed
the senatorial equilibrium between North and
South, which, however, had quickly been restored
by the admission of Wisconsin. But the South
had nothing to offer to counterbalance California
and New Mexico, which were being suddenly
niched from her confident expectation. In this
emergency those extremists in the South who off-
set the Abolitionists at the North fell back upon
the appalling threat of disunion, which could
hardly be regarded as an idle extravagance of the
"hotspurs," since it was substantially certain that
the Senate would never admit California with her
anti-slavery Constitution; and thus a real crisis
seemed at hand. Other questions also were cast
into the seething caldron. Texas, whose bounda-
ries were as uncertain as the ethics of politicians,
set up a claim which included nearly all New
Mexico, and so would have settled the question
of slavery for that region at least. Further, the
South called for a Fugitive Slave Law sufficiently
stringent to be serviceable. Also, in encountering
the Wilmot proviso, Southern statesmen had as-
serted the doctrine, far-reaching and subversive of
established ideas and of enacted laws, that Con-
gress could not constitutionally interfere with the
property-rights of citizens of the United States

NORTH AND SOUTH. 89

in the Territories, and that slaves were property.
Amid such a confused and violent hurly-burly the
perplexed body of order-loving citizens were, with
reason, seriously alarmed.

To the great relief of these people and to the
equal disgust of the extremist politicians Henry
Clay, the "great compromiser," was now an-
nounced to appear once more in the role which all
felt that he alone could play. He came with much
dramatic effect; an aged and broken man, he
emerged from the retirement in which he seemed
to have sought a brief rest before death should lay
him low, and it was with an impressive air of sad-
ness and of earnestness that he devoted the last
remnants of his failing strength to save a country
which he had served so long. His friends feared
that he might not survive even a few months to
reach the end of his patriotic task. On January
29, 1850, he laid before the Senate his "compre-
hensive scheme of adjustment." But it came not
as oil upon the angry waters; every one was
offended by one or another part of it, and at once
there opened a war of debate which is among the
most noteworthy and momentous in American his-
tory. Great men who belonged to the past and
great men who were to belong to the future shared
in the exciting controversies, which were prolonged
over a period of more than half a year. Clay was
constantly on his feet, doing battle with a voice
which gained rather than lost force from its pa-
thetic feebleness. "I am here," he solemnly said,

90 ABB AH AM LINCOLN.

" expecting soon to go hence, and owing no respon-
sibility but to my own conscience and to God."
Jefferson Davis spoke for the extension westward
of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific
Ocean, with a proviso positively establishing slav-
ery south of that line. Calhoun, from the edge of
the grave, into which only a few weeks later he
was to fall, once more faced his old adversaries.
On March 4 he sat beside Mason, of Virginia,
while that gentleman read for him to a hushed
audience the speech which he himself was too weak
to deliver. Three days later Webster uttered that
speech which made the seventh day of March
almost as famous in the history of the United
States as the Ides of the same month had been
in that of Rome. In the eyes of the anti-slavery
men of New England the fall of Webster was
hardly less momentous than the fall of Caesar had
appeared in the Eternal City. Seward also spoke
a noteworthy speech, bringing upon himself infinite
abuse by his bold phrase, a higher law than the
Constitution. Salmon P. Chase followed upon
the same side, in an exalted and prophetic strain.
In that momentous session every man gave out
what he felt to be his best, while anxious and ex-
cited millions devoured every word which the news-
papers reported to them.

Clay had imprudently gathered the several mat-
ters of his Compromise into one bill, which was
soon sneeringly nicknamed "the Omnibus Bill."
It was sorely harassed by amendments, and when

NORTH AND SOUTH. 91

at last, on July 31, the Omnibus reached the end
of its journey, it contained only one passenger,
viz., a Territorial government for Utah. Its trip
had apparently ended in utter failure. But a care-
ful study of individual proclivities showed that not
improbably those measures might be passed one by
one which could not be passed in combination. In
this hope, five several bills, being all the ejected
contents of the Omnibus, were brought forward,
and each in turn had the success which had been
denied to them together. First: Texas received
$10,000,000, and for this price magnanimously
relinquished her unfounded claim upon New Mex-
ico. Second : California was admitted, as a free
State. Third : New Mexico was organized as a Ter-
ritory, with the proviso that when she should form
a State constitution the slavery question should
be determined by the people, and that during her
Territorial existence the question of property in a
slave should be left undisturbed by congressional
action, to be determined by the Supreme Court
of the United States. Fourth : A more efficient
Fugitive Slave Law was passed. Fifth: Slave-
trading in the District of Columbia was abolished.
Such were the terms of an arrangement in which
every man saw so much which he himself disliked
that he felt sure that others must be satisfied.
Each plumed himself on his liberality in his con-
cessions nobly made in behalf of public harmony.
"The broad basis," says von Hoist, "on which the
compromise of 1850 rested, was the conviction of

92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

the great majority of the people, both North and
South, that it was fair, reasonable, and patriotic
to come to a friendly understanding."

Thus in the midsummer of 1850 did the nation,
with intense relief, see the imminent disaster of
civil discord averted, — or was it only postponed?
It was ominous that no men who were deeply in
earnest in public affairs were sincerely satisfied.
The South saw no gain which offset the destruction
of the balance of power by the admission of Cali-
fornia. Thinking men at the North were alarmed
at the recognition of the principle of non-interven-
tion by Congress concerning slavery in the Terri-
tories, a principle which soon, under the seductive
title of "popular sovereignty " in the Territories,
threatened even that partial restriction heretofore
given by the Missouri Compromise. Neither party
felt sufficiently secure of the strength of its legal
position to be altogether pleased at seeing the doc-
trine of treating the slave in the Territories as
"property " cast into the lottery of the Supreme
Court. Lincoln recognized the futility of this
whole arrangement and said truly that the slavery
question could "never be successfully compro-
mised." Yet he accepted the situation, with the
purpose of making of it the best that was possible.
The mass of the people, less far-sighted, were
highly gratified at the passing of the great danger ;
refused to recognize that a more temporary com-
promise was never patched up to serve a turn ; and
applauded it so zealously that in preparing for the

'vS^SI,Mll gcSmS,$zw~firlf'

NORTH AND SOUTH. 93

presidential campaign of 1852 each party felt com-
pelled to declare emphatically — what all wise
politicians knew to be false — the "finality" of
the great Compromise of 1850. Never, never
more was there to be a revival of the slavery agita-
tion ! Yet, at the same time, it was instinctively
felt that the concord would cease at once if the
nation should not give to the South a Democratic
president ! In this campaign Lincoln made a few
speeches in Illinois in favor of Scott; but Hern-
don says that they were not very satisfactory
efforts. Franklin Pierce was chosen, and slavery
could have had no better man.

This doctrine of non-intervention by Congress
with slavery in the territories lay as the seed of
mortal disease imbedded in the vitals of the great
Compromise even at the hour of its birth. All
the howlings of the political medicine-men in the
halls of Congress and in the wigwams where the
party platforms were manufactured, could not de-
fer the inevitable dissolution. The rapid peopling
of the Pacific coast already made it imperative to
provide some sort of governmental organization for
the sparsely inhabited regions lying between these
new lands and the fringe of population near the
Mississippi. Accordingly bills were introduced to
establish as a Territory the region which was after-
ward divided between Kansas and Nebraska; but
at two successive sessions they failed to pass, more,
as it seemed, from lack of interest than from any
open hostility. In the course of debate it was ex-

94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

plained, and not contradicted, that slavery was not
mentioned in the bills because the Missouri Com-
promise controlled that matter. Yet it was well
known that the Missouri Compromise was no
longer a sure barrier; for one wing of the pro-
slavery party asserted that it was unconstitutional
on the ground that slaves, being property, could
not be touched in the Territories by congressional
enactments ; while another wing of the party pre-
ferred the plausible cry of "popular sovereignty,"
than which no words could ring truer in American
ears; and no one doubted that, in order to give
that sovereignty full sway, they would at any con-
venient moment vote to repeal even the "sacred"
Compromise. It could not be denied that this
was the better course, if it were practicable ; and
accordingly, January 16, 1854, Senator Dixon of
Kentucky offered an amendment to the pending
Nebraska bill, which substantially embodied the
repeal. In the Senate Douglas was chairman of
the Committee on Territories, and was induced to
cooperate.1 January 23, 1854, he introduced his
famous "Kansas-Nebraska bill," establishing the
two Territories and declaring the Missouri Com-
promise "inoperative" therein. A later amend-
ment declared the Compromise to be "inconsistent
with the principle of non-intervention by Congress
with slavery in the States and Territories, as re-
cognized by the legislation of 1850," and therefore

1 For a description of Douglas's state of mind, see N. and H.,
i. 345-351, quoting original authorities.

ate^a^/

NORTE AND SOUTH. 95

"inoperative and void; it being the true intent and
meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into
any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there-
from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free
to form and regulate their domestic institutions in
their own way, subject only to the Constitution. "
After a long and hard fight the bill was passed
with this clause in it, which Benton well stigma-
tized as a " stump speech injected into the belly of
the bill." The insertion of the word State was of
momentous significance.

This repeal set the anti-slavery party all ablaze.
Among the rest Lincoln was fired with strenuous
indignation, and roused from the condition of
apparent indifference to public affairs in which he
had rested since the close of his term in Congress.
Douglas, coming home in the autumn, was so dis-
agreeably received by an angry audience in Chi-
cago that he felt it imperative to rehabilitate his
stricken popularity. This difficult task he essayed
at the great gathering of the State Fair in October.
But Lincoln was put forward to answer him, and
was brilliantly successful in doing so, if the highly
colored account of Mr. Herndon may be trusted.
Immediately after Lincoln's close, Owen Lovejoy,
the Abolitionist leader, announced "a meeting in
the same place that evening of all the friends of
freedom." The scheme was to induce Lincoln to
address them, and thus publicly to commit him as
of their faith. But the astute Herndon, though
himself an Abolitionist, felt that for Lincoln per-

96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

sonally this was by no means desirable. So he
hastened to Lincoln and strenuously said: "Go
home at once! Take Bob with you, and drive
somewhere into the country, and stay till this thing
is over;" and Lincoln did take Bob and drove
away to Tazewell Court House "on business."
Herndon congratulates himself upon having " saved
Lincoln," since either joining, or refusing to join,
the Abolitionists at that time would have been at-
tended with "great danger." Lincoln had upon
his own part a wise instinct and a strong purpose
to keep hard by Douglas and to close with him as
often as opportunity offered. Soon afterward the
two encountered again, and on this occasion it is
narrated that Lincoln gave Douglas so much trou-
ble that Douglas cried for a truce, proposing that
neither of them should make any more speeches
that autumn, to which Lincoln good-naturedly as-
sented.

During this winter Lincoln was elected to the
State Legislature, but contrary to his own wish.
For he designed to be a candidate for the United
States Senate, and there might be a question as
to his eligibility if he remained a member of the
electing body. Accordingly he resigned his seat,
which, to his surprise and chagrin, was immediately
filled by a Democrat; for there was a reaction
in Sangamon County. On February 8, 1855, the
Legislature began voting to elect a senator. The
"Douglas Democrats" wished to reelect Shields,
the present incumbent. The first ballot stood,

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NORTH AND SOUTH. 97

Lincoln, 45, Shields, 41, Lyman Trumbull, 5,
scattering, 5 (or, according to other authority, 8).
After several ballots Shields was thrown over in
favor of a more "practicable " candidate, Gov-
ernor Matteson, a "quasi -independent," who,
upon the ninth ballot, showed a strength of 47,
while Trumbull had 35, Lincoln had run down to
15, and "scattering" caught 1. Lincoln's weak-
ness lay in the fact that the Abolitionists had too
loudly praised him and publicly counted him as
one of themselves. For this reason five Demo-
crats, disgusted with Douglas for his attack on the
Missouri Compromise, but equally bitter against
Abolitionism, stubbornly refused ever to vote for a
Whig, above all a Whig smirched by Abolitionist
applause. So it seemed that Owen Love joy and
his friends had encumbered Lincoln with a fatal
handicap. The situation was this : Lincoln could
count upon his fifteen adherents to the extremity ;
but the five anti-Douglas Democrats were equally
stanch against him, so that his chance was evi-
dently gone. Trumbull was a Democrat, but he
was opposed to the policy of Douglas's Kansas-
Nebraska bill; his following was not altogether
trustworthy, and a trifling defection from it seemed
likely to occur and to make out Matteson 's major-
ity. Lincoln pondered briefly; then, subjecting
all else to the great principle of "anti-Nebraska,"
he urged his friends to transfer their votes to
Trumbull. With grumbling and reluctance they
did so, and by this aid, on the tenth ballot, Trum-

98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

bull was elected. In a letter to Washburne, Lin-
coln wrote: "I think you would have done the
same under the circumstances, though Judge
Davis, who came down this morning, declares he
never would have consented to the 47 men being
controlled by the 5. I regret my defeat moder-
ately, but am not nervous about it." If that was
true which was afterwards so frequently reiterated
by Douglas during the campaign of 1858, that a
bargain had been struck between Lincoln and
Trumbull, whereby the former was to succeed
Shields and the latter was to succeed Douglas at
the election two years later, then Lincoln certainly
displayed on this occasion a "generosity" which
deserves more than the very moderate praise which
has been given it, of being "above the range of
the mere politician's vision." 1

An immediate effect of this repealing legislation
of 1854 was to cast Kansas into the arena as booty
to be won in fight between anti-slavery and pro-
slavery. For this competition the North had the
advantage that its population outnumbered that of
the South in the ratio of three to two, and emigra-
tion was in accord with the habits of the people.
Against this the South offset proximity, of which
the peculiar usefulness soon became apparent.
Then was quickly under way a fair fight, in a cer-
tain sense, but most unfairly fought. Each side
contended after its fashion ; Northern anti-slavery
merchants subscribed money to pay the expenses
i N. andH.,i. 388.

NORTH AND SOUTH. 99

of free-state immigrants. "Border ruffians" and
members of "Blue Lodges "and of kindred fra-
ternities came across the border from Missouri to
take a band in every politico - belligerent crisis.
The parties were not unequally matched ; by tem-
perament the free-state men were inclined to orderly
and legitimate ways, yet they were willing and able
to fight fire with fire. On the other hand, the
slave-state men had a native preference for the
bowie-knife and the shot-gun, yet showed a kind
of respect for the ballot-box by insisting that it
should be stuffed with votes on their side. Thus
for a long while was waged a dubious, savage and
peculiar warfare. Imprisonments and rescues,
beatings, shootings, plunderings, burnings, sieges,
and lootings of towns were interspersed with elec-
tions of civil officers, with legislative enactments
in ordinary form, with trials, suits at law, legal
arguments and decisions of judges. It is impossi-
ble here to sketch in detail this strange phantas-
magory of arson, bloodshed, politics, and law.

Meantime other occurrences demand mention.
In May, 1854, the seizure in Boston of Anthony
Burns, as an escaped slave, caused a riot in which
the Court House was attacked by a mob, one of
the assailants was killed, and the militia were
called out. Other like seizures elsewhere aroused
the indignation of people who, whatever were their
abstract theories as to the law, revolted at the
actual spectacle of a man dragged back from
freedom into slavery. May 22, 1856, Preston S.

100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Brooks strode suddenly upon Charles Sumner,
seated and unarmed at his desk in the Senate
Chamber, and beat him savagely over the head
with a cane, inflicting very serious injuries. Had
it been a fair fight, or had the South repudiated
the act, the North might have made little of it, for
Sumner was too advanced in his views to be politi-
cally popular. But, although the onslaught was
even more offensive for its cowardice than for its
brutality, nevertheless the South overwhelmed
Brooks with laudation, and by so doing made
thousands upon thousands of Eepublican votes at
the North. The deed, the enthusiastic greeting,
and the angry resentment marked the alarming
height to which the excitement had risen.

The presidential campaign of the following sum-
mer, 1856, showed a striking disintegration and
re-formation of political groups. Nominally there
were four parties in the field : Democrats, Whigs,
Native Americans or Know-Nothings, and Eepub-
licans. The Know-Nothings had lately won some
State elections, but were of little account as a na-
tional organization, for they stood upon an issue
hopelessly insignificant in comparison with slavery.
Already many had gone over to the Eepublican
camp; those who remained nominated as their
candidates Millard Fillmore and Andrew J. Donel-
son. The Whigs were the feeble remnant of a
really dead party, held together by affection for
the old name; too few to do anything by them-
selves, they took by adoption the Know-Nothing

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NORTH AND SOUTH. 101

candidates. The Republican party had been born
only in 1854. Its members, differing on other
matters, united upon the one doctrine, which they
accepted as a test : opposition to the extension of
slavery. They nominated John C. Fremont and
William L. Dayton, and made a platform whereby
they declared it to be "both the right and the duty
of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those
twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery;''
by which vehement and abusive language they ex-
cited the bitter resentment of the Southern Demo-
cracy. In this Convention 110 votes were cast for
Lincoln for the second place on the ticket. La-
mon tells the little story that when this was told
to Lincoln he replied that he could not have been
the person designated, who was, doubtless, "the
great Lincoln from Massachusetts." 1 In the Dem-
ocratic party there were two factions. The favor-
ite candidate of the South was Franklin Pierce,
for reelection, with Stephen A. Douglas as a sub-
stitute or second choice; the North more generally
preferred James Buchanan, who was understood
to be displeased with the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise. The struggle was sharp, but was
won by the friends of Buchanan, with whom
John C. Breckenridge was coupled. The campaign
was eager, for the Eepublicans soon developed a
strength beyond what had been expected and which

1 Thus when John Adams first landed in Europe, and was asked
whether he was "the great Mr. Adams," he said: No, the great
Mr. Adams was his cousin, Samuel Adams, of Boston.

102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

put the Democrats to their best exertions. The
result was

Democrats. Republicans. ""JJ^ggW

Popular vote . . 1,838,169 1,341,264 874,534

Electoral vote . . 174 114 8

Thus James Buchanan became President of the
United States, March 4, 1857, — stigmatized some-
what too severely as "a Northern man with South-
ern principles ; " in fact an honest man and of good
abilities, who, in ordinary times, would have left
a fair reputation as a statesman of the second rank ;
but a man hopelessly unfit alike in character and
in mind either to comprehend the present emer-
gency or to rise to its demands.1 Yet, while the
Democrats triumphed, the Republicans enjoyed the
presage of the future ; they had polled a total num-
ber of votes which surprised every one; on the
other hand, the Democrats had lost ten States2
which they had carried in 1852 and had gained
only two others,3 showing a net loss of eight
States; and their electoral votes had dwindled
from 254 to 174.

On the day following Buchanan's inauguration
that occurred which had been foreshadowed with
ill-advised plainness in his inaugural address. In

1 For a fair and discriminating estimate of Buchanan, see
Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, vol. i. ch. x., especially pp.
239-241.

2 Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
York, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, all for Fremont ; Mary-
land for Fillmore.

3 Tennessee and Kentucky.

NORTH AND SOUTH. 103

the famous case of Dred Scott,1 the Supreme Court
of the United States established as law the doc-
trine lately advanced by the Southern Democrats,
that a slave was "property," and that his owner
was entitled to be protected in the possession of
him, as such, in the Territories. This necessarily
demolished the rival theory of "popular sover-
eignty," which the Douglas Democrats had adopted,
not without shrewdness, as being far better suited
to the Northern mind. For clearly the people en-
joyed no sovereignty where they had no option.
Consequently in the Territories there was no longer
a slavery question. The indignation of anti-slav-
ery men of all shades of opinion was intense, and
was unfortunately justifiable. For wholly apart
from the controversy as to whether the law was
better expounded by the Chief Justice or by Judge
Curtis in his dissenting opinion, there remained a
main fact, undeniable and inexcusable, to wit:
that the Court, having decided that the lower
court had no jurisdiction, and being therefore it-
self unable to remand the cause for a new trial,
had then outstepped its own proper function and
outraged legal propriety, by determining the ques-
tions raised by the rest of the record, — questions
which no longer had any real standing before this
tribunal. This course was well known to have
been pursued with the purpose on the part of the

1 Dred Scott, plff. in error vs. Sandford, Sup. Ct. of U. S. Dec.
Term, 1856, 19 Howard, 393. After the conclusion of this ease
Scott was given his freedom by his master.

104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

majority of the judges to settle by judicial author-
ity, and by a dictum conspicuously obiter, that
great slavery question with which Congress had
grappled in vain. It was a terrible blunder, for
the people were only incensed by a volunteered and
unauthorized interference. Moreover, the reason-
ing of Chief Justice Taney was such that the Ee-
publicans began anxiously to inquire why it was
not as applicable to States as to Territories, and
why it must not be extended to States when occa-
sion should arrive ; and in this connection it seemed
now apparent why "States" had been named in
the bill which repealed the Missouri Compromise.1
In spite of this menace the struggle in Kansas
was not slackened. Time had been counting heav-
ily in favor of the North. Her multitudinous pop-
ulation ceaselessly fed the stream of immigrants,
and they were stubborn fellows who came to stay,
and therefore were sure to wear out the persist-
ence of the boot-and-saddle men from over the
Missouri border. Accordingly, in 1857, the free-
state men so vastly outnumbered the slavery con-
tingent, that even pro-slavery men had to acknow-
ledge it. Then the slavery party made its last
desperate effort. Toward the close of that year
the Lecompton Constitution was framed by a con-
vention chosen at an election in which the free-
state men, perhaps unwisely, had refused to take
part. When this pro - slavery instrument was
offered to the people, they were not allowed to
vote simply Yea or Nay, but only "for the Con-
1 Ante, pp. 94, 95.

NORTE AND SOUTH. 105

stitution with slavery," or "for the Constitution
with no slavery." Again the free-state men re-
frained from voting, and on December 21, 6,143
ballots were declared to have been cast "for the
Constitution with slavery," and 589 "for the Con-
stitution with no slavery." Much more than one
third of the 6,143 were proved to be fraudulent,
but the residue far exceeded the requisite majority.
January 4, 1858, State officers were to be chosen,
and now the free-state men decided to make an
irregular opportunity to vote, in their turn, simply
for or against the Lecompton Constitution. This
time the pro-slavery men, considering the matter
already lawfully settled, refused to vote, and the
result was that this polling showed 10,226 against
the Constitution, 138 for the Constitution with
slavery, 24 for the Constitution without slavery.
It is an instance of Lincoln's political foresight
that nearly two years and a half before this condi-
tion of affairs came about he had written: "If
Kansas fairly votes herself a slave State, she must
be admitted, or the Union must be dissolved.
But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly?
. . . Must she still be admitted, or the Union be
dissolved? That will be the phase of the question
when it first becomes a practical one." 1

The struggle was now transferred to Washing-
ton. President Buchanan had solemnly pledged
himself to accept the result of the popular vote.
Now he was confronted by two popular votes, of
1 Aug. 24, 1855; Holland, 145.

106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

which the one made somewhat the better technical
and formal showing, and the other undeniably ex-
pressed the true will of a large majority of lawful
voters. He selected the former, and advised Con-
gress to admit Kansas under the Lecompton Con-
stitution with slavery. But Douglas took the
other side. The position of Douglas in the nation
and in the Democratic party deserves brief consid-
eration, for in a way it was the cause of Lincoln's
nomination as the Eepublican candidate for the
presidency in 1860. From 1852 to 1860 Douglas
was the most noteworthy man in public life in the
country. Webster, Clay, and Calhoun had passed
away. Seward, Chase, and Sumner, still in the
earlier stages of their brilliant careers, were or-
ganizing the great party of the future. This in-
terval of eight years belonged to Douglas more
than to any other one man. He had been a candi-
date for the Democratic nomination for the presi-
dency in 1852 and again in 1856 ; and had failed
to secure it in part by reason of that unwritten
rule whereby the leading statesmen are so often
passed over, in order to confer the great prize upon
insignificant and therefore presumably submissive
men. Douglas was not of this type; he had high
spirit, was ambitious, masterful and self-confident ;
he was also an aggressive, brilliant, and tireless
fighter in a political campaign, an orator combin-
ing something of the impressiveness of Webster
with the readiness and roughness of the stump
speaker. He had a thorough familiarity with all

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NORTH AND SOUTH. 107

the politics, both the greater and the smaller, of
the time ; he was shrewd and adroit as a politician,
and he had as good a right as any man then prom-
inent in public life to the more dignified title of
statesman. He had the art of popularity, and
upon sufficient occasion could be supple and accom-
modating even in the gravest matters of principle.
He had always been a Democrat. He now re-
garded himself as properly the leader of the Demo-
cratic party; and of course he still aimed at the
high office which he had twice missed.1 With
this object in view, he had gone very far to retain
his hold upon the South. He told Southerners
that by his happy theory of "popular sovereignty "
he had educated the public mind, and accomplished
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. When
the Dred Scott decision took the life out of his
"popular sovereignty, "he showed his wonted read-
iness in adapting himself to the situation. To the
triumphant South he graciously admitted the final-
ity of a decision which sustained the most extreme
Southern doctrine. To the perturbed and indig-
nant North he said cheeringly that the decision
was of no practical consequence whatsoever ! For
every one knew that slavery could not exist in
any community without the aid of friendly legisla-
tion; and if any anti-slavery community should by
its anti-slavery legislature withhold this essential
friendly legislation, then slavery in that State

1 For a good sketch of Douglas, see Blaine, Twenty Years of
Congress, i. 144.

108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

might be lawful but would be impossible. So, he
said, there is still in fact "popular sovereignty.''1
When the pro -slavery Lecompton Constitution
came up for consideration Douglas decided not
to rest content with the form of popular approval,
but to stand out for the substance. He quarreled
with Buchanan, and in an angry interview they
exchanged threats and defiance. Douglas felt
himself the greater man of the two in the party,
and audaciously indicated something like contempt
for the rival who was not leader but only President.
Conscience, if one may be allowed gravely to speak
of the conscience of a professional politician, and
policy, were in comfortable unison in commending
this choice to Douglas. For his term as senator
was to expire in 1858, and reelection was not only
in itself desirable, but seemed essential to securing
the presidency in 1860. Heretofore Illinois had
been a Democratic State; the southern part, peo-
pled by immigrants from neighboring slave States,
was largely pro -slavery; but the northern part,
containing the rapidly growing city of Chicago,
had been filled from the East, and was inclined to
sympathize with the rest of the North. Such be-
ing the situation, an avowal of Democratic princi-
ples, coupled with the repudiation of the Lecomp-
ton fraud, seemed the shrewd and safe course in
view of Douglas's political surroundings, also the

1 This doctrine was set forth by Douglas in a speech at Spring-
field, 111., June 12, 1857. A fortnight later, June 26, at the same
place, Lincoln answered this speech. N. and H., ii. 85-89.

NORTH AND SOUTH. 109

consistent, or may we say honest, course in view
of his antecedent position. If, in thus retaining
his hold on Illinois, he gave to the Southern Demo-
cracy an offense which could never be forgotten or
forgiven, this misfortune was due to the impracti-
cable situation and not to any lack of skilful strat-
egy on his part. In spite of him the bill passed
the Senate, but in the House twenty-two Northern
Democrats went over to the opposition, and car-
ried a substitute measure, which established that
the Lecompton Constitution must again be sub-
mitted to popular vote. Though this was done by
the body of which Douglas was not a member, yet
every one felt that it was in fact his triumph over
the administration. A Committee of Conference
then brought in the "English bill." Under this
the Kansans were to vote, August 3, 1858, either
to accept the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution,
with the douceur of a land grant, or to reject it.
If they accepted it, the State was to be admitted
at once; if they rejected it, they were not to be
admitted until the population should reach the
number which was required for electing a member
to the House of Eepresentatives. At present the
population was far short of this number, and
therefore rejection involved a long delay in acquir-
ing statehood. Douglas very justly assailed the
unfairness of a proposal by which an anti-slavery
vote was thus doubly and very severely handi-
capped; but the bill was passed by both Houses
of Congress and was signed by the president. The

110 ABB AH AM LINCOLN.

Kansans, however, by an enormous majority,1 re-
jected the bribes of land and statehood in connec-
tion with slavery. For his action concerning the
Lecompton Constitution and the "English bill"
Douglas afterward took much credit to himself.

Such was the stage of advancement of the slav-
ery conflict in the country, and such the position
of Douglas in national and in state politics, when
there took place that great campaign in Illinois
which made him again senator in 1858, and made
Lincoln president in 1860.

1 By 11,300 against 1,788, Aug. 2, 1858. Kansas was admitted
as a State at the close of January, 1861, after many of the Southern
States had already seceded.

S . A . DOUGLAS

Eru/rawecL eujprassLy -for -dhboiis CwlL War".

CHAPTER V.

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE.

About this time Lincoln again became active
in the politics of his State, aiding in the formation
of the Eepublican party there. On May 29, 1856,
a state convention of "all opponents of anti -Ne-
braska legislation " was held at Bloomington.
After "a platform ringing with strong anti-Ne-
braska sentiments" had been adopted, Lincoln,
" in response to repeated calls, came forward and
delivered a speech of such earnestness and power
that no one who heard it will ever forget the effect
it produced." It was "never written out or
printed," which is to be regretted; but it lives in
one of those vivid descriptions by Herndon which
leave nothing to the imagination. For the moment
this triumph was gratifying; but when Lincoln,
leaving the hot enthusiasts of Bloomington, came
home to his fellow-townsmen at Springfield, he
passed into a chill atmosphere of indifference and
disapproval. An effort was made to gather a mass
meeting in order to ratify the action of the State
convention. But the "mass" consisted of three
persons, viz., Abraham Lincoln, Herndon, and
one John Pain. It was trying, but Lincoln was

112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

finely equal to the occasion; in a few words, pass-
ing from jest to earnest, he said that the meeting
was larger than he knew it would be; for while
he knew that he and his partner would attend,
he was not sure of any one else ; and yet another
man had been found brave enough to come out.
But, "while all seems dead, the age itself is not.
It liveth as sure as our Maker liveth. Under all
this seeming want of life and motion the world
does move, nevertheless. Be hopeful, and now
let us adjourn and appeal to the people ! "

In the presidential campaign of 1856 the Repub-
licans of Illinois put Lincoln on their electoral
ticket, and he entered into the campaign promptly
and very zealously. Traveling untiringly to and
fro, he made about fifty speeches. By the quality
of these, even more than by their number, he be-
came the champion of the party, so that pressing
demands for him came from the neighboring
States. He was even heard of in the East. But
there he encountered a lack of appreciation and
in some quarters an hostility which he felt to be
hurtful to his prospects as well as unjust towards
a leading Republican of the Northwest. Horace
Greeley, enthusiastic, well meaning, ever blunder-
ing, the editor of the New York "Tribune," cast
the powerful influence of that sheet against him;
and as the senatorial contest of 1858 was approach-
ing, in which Lincoln hoped to be a principal, this
ill feeling was very unfortunate.1 "I fear," he

1 As an example of Greeley's position, see letter quoted by

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 113

said, "that Greeley's attitude will damage me
with Sumner, Seward, Wilson, Phillips, and other
friends in the East," — and by the way, it is in-
teresting to note this significant list of political
"friends." Thereupon Herndon, as guardian of
Lincoln's political prospects, went to pass the open-
ing months of the important year upon a crusade
among the great men of the East, designing to ex-
tinguish the false lights erroneously hung out by
persons ignorant of the truth. Erelong he cheered
Lincoln by encouraging accounts of success and of
kind words spoken by many Eastern magnates.

In 1858, ability, courage, activity, ambition,
the prestige of success, and a plausible moderation
in party politics combined to make Douglas the
most conspicuous individual in the public view.
There was no other way whereby any other man
could so surely attract the close and interested at-
tention of the whole people as by meeting Douglas
in direct personal competition. If Douglas had
not held the position which he did, or if, holding
it, he had lived in another State than Illinois, Lin-
coln might never have been president of the United
States. But the essential facts lay favorably for
effecting that presentation before the people which
was indispensable for his fortunes. In April,
1858, the Democratic State Convention of Illinois

N. and H., ii. 140, note. The fact that he was strenuously pro-
Douglas and anti-Lineoln is well known. Yet afterward he said
that it " was hardly in human nature " for Republicans to treat
Douglas as a friend. Greeley's American Conflict, i. 301.

114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

indorsed the position which Douglas had taken in
the Kansas business. This involved that the party
should present him as its candidate for reelection
to the national Senate by the legislature whose
members were to be chosen in the following autumn.
"In the very nature of things," says the enthu-
siastic Herndon, Lincoln was at once selected by
the Kepublicans, and on June 16 their Convention
resolved that "Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first
and only choice for United States senator to fill
the vacancy about to be created by the expiration
of Mr. Douglas's term of office. " Immediately
the popular excitement gave measure of the esti-
mate placed upon the two men by those who most
accurately knew their qualities. All Illinoisians
looked forward eagerly to the fine spectacle of a
battle royal between real leaders.

The general political condition was extremely
confused. The great number of worthy citizens,
who had been wont to save themselves from the
worry of critical thought in political matters by
the simple process of uniform allegiance to a party,
now found the old familiar organizations rapidly
disintegrating. They were dismayed and bewil-
dered at the scene; everywhere there were new
cries, new standards, new leaders, while small
bodies of recruits, displaying in strange union old
comrades beside old foes, were crossing to and fro
and changing relationships, to the inextricable con-
fusion of the situation. In such a chaos each man
was driven to do his own thinking, to discover his

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 115

genuine beliefs, and to determine in what company-
he could stand enduringly in the troublous times
ahead. It was one of those periods in which small
men are laid aside and great leaders are recognized
by popular instinct; when the little band that is in
deepest earnest becomes endowed with a force
which compels the mass of careless, temporizing
human-kind to gravitate towards it. Such bands
were now the Abolitionists at the North and the
Secessionists at the South. Between them lay the
nation, disquieted, contentious, and more than a
little angry at the prevalent discomfort and alarm.
At the North nine men out of ten cared far less
for any principle, moral or political, than they did
for the discovery of some course whereby this un-
welcome conflict between slavery and freedom
could be prevented from disorganizing the course
of daily life and business ; and since the Abolition-
ists were generally charged with being in great
measure responsible for the present menacing con-
dition, they were regarded with bitter animosity
by a large number of their fellow-citizens. The
Secessionists were not in equal disfavor at the
South, yet they were still very much in the minor-
ity, even in the Gulf States.

Illinois had been pretty stanchly Democratic in
times past, but no one could forecast the complex-
ion which she would put on in the coming cam-
paign. The Whigs were gone. The Republican
party, though so lately born, yet had already trav-
ersed the period of infancy and perhaps also that

116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

of youth; men guessed wildly how many voters
would now cast its ballot. On the other hand, the
Democrats were suffering from internal quarrels.
The friends of Douglas, and all moderate Demo-
crats, declared him to be the leader of the Demo-
cracy; but Southern conventions and newspapers
were angrily "reading him out" of the party, and
the singular spectacle was witnessed of the Demo-
cratic administration sending out its orders to all
Federal office - holders in Illinois to oppose the
Democratic nominee, even to the point of giving
the election to the Republicans; for if discipline
was to exist, a defection like that of which Douglas
had been guilty must be punished with utter and
everlasting destruction at any cost. This schism
of course made the numerical uncertainties even
more uncertain than they rightfully should have
been. Yet, in an odd way, the same fact worked
also against Lincoln; for Douglas's recent votes
against the pro- slavery measures of the administra-
tion for the admission of Kansas, together with his
own direct statements on recent occasions, had put
him in a light which misled many Northern anti-
slavery men, whose perception did not penetrate to
the core-truth. For example, not only Greeley,
but Henry Wilson, Burlingame, Washburne, Col-
fax, and more, really believed that Douglas was
turning his back upon his whole past career, and
that this brilliant political strategist was actually
bringing into the anti-slavery camp 2 all his accu-

1 Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, ii. 567 ; for sketches

& M)Qi/ir^

(n. oJo. Tliaj/ilu'nif.

4?k

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 117

mulations of prestige, popularity, and experience,
all his seductive eloquence, his skill, and his grand
mastery over men. Blinded by the dazzling pros-
pect, they gave all their influence in favor of this
priceless recruit, forgetting that, if he were in fact
such an apostate as they believed him to be, he
would come to them terribly shrunken in value and
trustworthiness. Some even were so infatuated as
to insist that the Eepublicans of Illinois ought to
present no candidate against him. Fortunately
the Illinoisians knew their fellow-citizen better;
yet in so strange a jumble, no one could deny that
it was a doubtful conflict in which these two rivals
were joining.

Lincoln had expected to be nominated, and dur-
ing several weeks he had been thinking over his
speech of acceptance. However otherwise he might
seem at any time to be engaged, he was ceaselessly
turning over this matter in his mind; and fre-
quently he stopped short to jot down an idea or
expression upon some scrap of paper, which then
he thrust into his hat. Thus, piece by piece, the
accumulation grew alike inside and outside of his
head, and at last he took all his fragments and
with infinite consideration moulded them into
unity. So studiously had he wrought that by the
time of delivery he had unconsciously committed

of Douglas's position, see Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 141-
144; von Hoist, Const. Hist, of U. S., vi. 280-286 ; Herndon, 391-
395; N. and H., ii. 138-143; Lamon, 390-395; Holland, 158.
Crittenden was one of the old Whigs, who now sorely disappointed
Lincoln by preferring Douglas. N- and H., ii. 142.

118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

the whole speech accurately to memory. If so
much painstaking seemed to indicate an exagger-
ated notion of the importance of his words, he was
soon vindicated by events; for what he said was
subjected to a dissection and a criticism such as
have not often pursued the winged words of the
orator. When at last the composition was com-
pleted, he gathered a small coterie of his friends
and admirers, and read it to them. The opening
paragraph was as follows : —

"If we could first know where we are, and
whither we are tending, we could better judge
what to do and how to do it. We are now far
into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with
the avowed object and confident promise of putting
an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation
of that policy, that agitation has not only not
ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my
opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have
been reached and passed. 'A house divided
against itself cannot stand.' I believe this gov-
ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and
half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis-
solved, — I do not expect the house to fall, — but
I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will
become all one thing or all the other. Either
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further
spread of it, and place it where the public mind
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course
of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push
it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 119

the States, old as well as new, — North as well
as South."

As the reader watched for the effect of this ex-
ordium he saw only disapproval and consternation.
His assembled advisers and critics, each and all
save only the fiery Herndon, protested that lan-
guage so daring and advanced would work a ruin
that might not be mended in years. Lincoln heard
their condemnation with gravity rather than sur-
prise. But he had worked his way to a conviction,
and he was immovable; all he said was, that the
statement was true, right, and just, that it was
time it should be made, and that he would make
it, even though he might have "to go down with
it;" that he would "rather be defeated with this
expression in the speech . . . than to be victo-
rious without it." Accordingly, on the next day
he spoke the paragraph without the change of a
word.

It is not without effort that we can now appre-
ciate fully why this utterance was so momentous
in the spring of 1858. 1 By it Lincoln came before

1 Several months afterward, Oct. 25, 1858, Mr. Seward made
the speech at Rochester which contained the famous sentence:
"It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring
forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner
or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely
a free-labor nation." Seward's Works, new edition, 1884, iv. 292.
But Seward ranked among the extremists and the agitators. See
Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 24A. After all, the idea had already
found expression in the Richmond Enquirer, May 6, 1856, quoted
by von Hoist, vi. 299, also referred to by Lincoln; see Lincoln
and Douglas Deb. 262.

120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

the people with a plain statement of precisely that
which more than nine hundred and ninety-nine
persons in every thousand, especially at the North,
were striving with all their might to stamp down
as an untruth ; he said to them what they all were
denying with desperation, and with rage against
the assertors. Their bitterness was the greater
because very many, in the bottom of their hearts,
distrusted their own painful and strenuous denial.
No words could be more unpopular than that the
divided house could not permanently stand, when
the whole nation was insisting, with the intensity
of despair, that it could stand, would stand, must
stand. Consequently occurrences soon showed his
friends to be right so far as concerned the near,
practical point: that the paragraph would cost
more voters in Illinois than Lincoln could lose
without losing his election. But beyond that
point, a little farther away in time, much deeper
down amid enduring results, Lincoln's judgment
was ultimately seen to rest upon fundamental
wisdom, politically as well as morally. For Lin-
coln was no idealist, sacrificing realities to abstrac-
tions; on the contrary, the right which he saw
was always a practical right, a right which could
be compassed. In this instance, the story goes
that he retorted upon some of those who grumbled
about his "mistake," that in time they "would
consider it the wisest thing he ever said." In this
he foretold truly ; that daring and strong utterance
was the first link in the chain of which a more dis-

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 121

tant link lay across the threshold of the White
House.

A battle opened by so resounding a shot was
sure to be furious. Writers and speakers fell
upon the fateful paragraph and tore it savagely.
They found in it a stimulus which, in fact, was not
needed; for already were present all the elements
of the fiercest struggle, — the best man and the
best fighter in each party at the front, and not un-
evenly matched ; a canvass most close and doubt-
ful; and a question which stirred the souls of men
with the passions of crusading days. Douglas
added experience and distinction to gallantry in
attack, adroitness in defense, readiness in person-
alities, and natural aptitude for popular oratory.
Lincoln frankly admitted his formidable qualifica-
tions. But the Eepublican managers had a shrewd
appreciation of both opponents ; they saw that Lin-
coln's forte lay in hitting out straight, direct, and
hard ; and they felt that blows of the kind he de-
livered should not go out into the air, but should
alight upon a concrete object, — upon Douglas.
They conceived a wise plan. On July 24, 1858,
Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of joint
debates. Douglas accepted, and named seven
meetings, which he so arranged that he opened and
closed four times and Lincoln opened and closed
three times; but Lincoln made no point of the
inequality; the arrangement was completed, and
this famous duel constituted another link in that
White House chain.

122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The setting of the spectacle had the picturesque-
ness of the times and the region. The people
gathered in vast multitudes, to the number of ten
thousand, even of twenty thousand, at the places
named for the speech-making; they came in their
wagons from all the country round, bringing pro-
visions, and making camps in the groves and fields.
There were bonfires and music, parading and
drinking. He was a singular man in Illinois who
was not present at some one of these encounters.

Into a competition so momentous Lincoln en-
tered with a full appreciation of the burden and
responsibility which it put upon him. He had at
once to meet a false gloss of his famous sentence ;
and though he had been very precise and accurate
in his phraseology for the express purpose of es-
caping misinterpretation, yet it would have been
a marvel in applied political morals if the para-
phrases devised by Douglas had been strictly in-
genuous. The favorite distortion was to alter
what was strictly a forecast into a declaration of a
policy, to make a prediction pass for an avowal of
a purpose to wage war against slavery until either
the "institution" or "Abolitionism" should be
utterly defeated and forever exterminated. It was
said to be a "doctrine" which was "revolutionary
and destructive of this government," and which
"invited a warfare between the North and the
South, to be carried on with ruthless vengeance,
until the one section or the other shall be driven to
the wall and become the victim of the rapacity of

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 123

the other.'' Such misrepresentation annoyed Lin-
coln all the more because it was undeserved. The
history of the utterance thus maltreated illustrates
the deliberate, cautious, thorough way in which his
mind worked. So long ago as August 15, 1855,
he had closed a letter with the paragraph : " Our
political problem now is: Can we, as a nation,
continue together permanently — forever, half slave
and half free ? The problem is too mighty for me.
May God in his mercy superintend the solution." 1
This is one among many instances which show how
studiously Lincoln pondered until he had got his
conclusion into that simple shape in which it was
immutable. When he had found a form which
satisfied him for the expression of a conviction, he
was apt to use it repeatedly rather than to seek
new and varied shapes, so that substantially iden-
tical sentences often recur at distant intervals of
time and place.

When one has been long studying with much
earnest intensity of thought a perplexing and mov-
ing question, and at last frames a conclusion with
painstaking precision in perfectly clear language,
it is not pleasant to have that accurate utterance
mis-stated with tireless reiteration, and with infi-
nite art and plausibility. But for this vexation
Lincoln could find no remedy, and it was in vain
that he again and again called attention to the fact
that he had expressed neither a "doctrine," nor an

1 Letter to Hon. Geo. Robertson, N. and H., i. 392; and see
Lamon, 398 ; also see remarks of von Hoist, vi. 277.

124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

"invitation," nor any "purpose" or policy whatso-
ever. But as it seemed not altogether courageous
to leave his position in doubt, he said: "Now,
it is singular enough, if you will carefully read
that passage over, that I did not say in it that I
was in favor of anything. I only said what I ex-
pected would take place. ... I did not even say
that I desired that slavery should be put in course
of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however,
so there need be no longer any difficulty about
that." He felt that nothing short of such extinc-
tion would surely prevent the revival of a dispute
which had so often been settled "forever." "We
can no more foretell," he said, "where the end of
this slavery agitation will be than we can see the
end of the world itself. . . . There is no way of
putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst us
but to put it back upon the basis where our fathers
placed it. . . . Then the public mind will rest in
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex-
tinction."

There was much of this eloquence about "the
fathers," much evocation of the shades of the
great departed, who, having reached the eternal
silence, could be claimed by both sides. The con-
tention was none the less strenuous because it was
entirely irrelevant; since the opinion of "the fa-
thers" could not make slavery right or wrong.
Many times therefore did Douglas charge Lincoln
with having said "that the Union could not en-
dure divided as our fathers made it, with free and

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 125

slave States; " as though this were a sort of blas-
phemy against the national demigods. Lincoln
aptly retorted that, as matter of fact, these same
distinguished "fathers" — "Washington, Jeffer-
son, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and the
great men of that day " — did not make, but found,
the nation half slave and half free ; that they set
"many clear marks of disapprobation " upon slav-
ery, and left it so situated that the popular mind
rested in the belief that it was in the course of ul-
timate extinction. Unfortunately it had not been
allowed to remain as they had left it; but on the
contrary, "all the trouble and convulsion has pro-
ceeded from the efforts to spread it over more
territory."

Pursuing this line, Lincoln alleged the purpose
of the pro-slavery men to make slavery "perpetual
and universal" and "national." In his great
speech of acceptance at Springfield he put this
point so well that he never improved upon this
first presentation of it. The repeal of the Mis-
souri Compromise in 1854 "opened all the na-
tional territory to slavery, and was the first point
gained. But so far Congress only had acted, and
an indorsement by the people, real or imaginary,"
was obtained by "the notable argument of 'squat-
ter sovereignty,' otherwise called 'sacred right of
self-government,' which latter phrase, though ex-
pressive of the only rightful basis of any govern-
ment, was so perverted in this attempted use of it
as to amount to just this: that if any one man

126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

choose to enslave another, no third man shall be
permitted to object. That argument was incorpo-
rated into the Nebraska bill." In May, 1854,
this bill was passed. Then the presidential elec-
tion came. "Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the
indorsement was secured. That was the second
point gained." Meantime the celebrated case of
the negro, Dred Scott, was pending in the Su-
preme Court, and the "President in his inaugural
address fervently exhorted the people to abide by
the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be.
Then in a few days came the decision," which was
at once emphatically indorsed by Douglas, "the
reputed author of the Nebraska bill," and by the
new President.

"At length a squabble springs up between the
President and the author of the Nebraska bill on
the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton
Constitution was or was not, in any just sense,
made by the people of Kansas ; and in that quarrel
the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote
for the people, and that he cares not whether slav-
ery be voted down or voted up.

"The several points of the Dred Scott decision
in connection with Senator Douglas's 'care not '
policy constitute the piece of machinery in its
present state of advancement. This was the third
point gained.

"We cannot absolutely know that all these ex-

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 127

act adaptations are the result of preconcert. But
when we see a lot of framed timbers, different por-
tions of which we know have been gotten out at
different times and places and by different work-
men, — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for
instance, — and when we see these timbers joined
together, and see they exactly make the frame of
a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices ex-
actly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions
of the different pieces exactly adapted to their re-
spective places, and not a piece too many or too
few, — not omitting even scaffolding ; or, if a sin-
gle piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame
exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece
in, — in such a case, we find it impossible not to
believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and
James all understood one another from the begin-
ning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft
drawn up before the first blow was struck.

"It should not be overlooked that by the Ne-
braska bill the people of a State as well as a Terri-
tory were to be left ' perfectly free,' 'subject only
to the Constitution.' Why mention a State?
. . . Why is mention of this lugged into this
merely territorial law?

. . . "Put this and that together, and we have
another nice little niche, which we may erelong see
filled with another Supreme Court decision, declar-
ing that the Constitution of the United States does
not permit a State to exclude slavery from its

128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

limits. And this may especially be expected if
the doctrine of 'care not whether slavery be voted
down or voted up ' shall gain upon the public mind
sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can
be maintained when made. Such a decision is all
that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all
the States." Following out this idea Lincoln re-
peatedly put to Douglas a question to which he
could never get a direct answer from his nimble
antagonist: "If a decision is made, holding that
the people of the States cannot exclude slavery,
will he support it, or not? "

Even so skilful a dialectician as Douglas found
this compact structure of history and argument a
serious matter. Its simple solidity was not so sus-
ceptible to treatment by the perverting process as
had been the figurative and prophetic utterance
about the "house divided against itself." Neither
could he find a chink between the facts and the
inferences. One aspect of the speech, however,
could not be passed over. Lincoln said that he
had not charged "Stephen and Franklin and
Eoger and James" with collusion and conspiracy;
but he admitted that he had "arrayed the evidence
tending to prove," and which he "thought did
prove," these things.1 It was impossible for the

1 Lincoln and Douglas Deb., 93. W. P. Fessenden, "who,"
says Mr. Blaine, " always spoke with precision and never with
passion," expressed his opinion that if Fremont had been elected
instead of Buchanan, that decision would never have been given.
Twenty Years of Congress, i. 133.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

WASHINGTON.

/7/y^^/i^u^ <yzs? *

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 129

four distinguished gentlemen 1 who owned the rest
of these names to refuse to plead. Accordingly
Douglas sneered vehemently at the idea that two
presidents, the chief justice, and he himself had
been concerned in that grave crime against the
State which was imputed to them; and when, by
his lofty indignation, he had brought his auditors
into sympathy, he made the only possible reply:
that the real meaning, the ultimate logical out-
come, of what Lincoln had said was, that a deci-
sion of the Supreme Court was to be set aside by
the political action of the people at the polls.
The Supreme Court had interpreted the Constitu-
tion, and Lincoln was inciting the people to annul
that interpretation by some political process not
known to the law. For himself, he proclaimed
with effective emphasis his allegiance to that
great tribunal in the performance of its constitu-
tional duties. Lincoln replied that he also bowed
to the Dred Scott decision in the specific case;
but he repudiated it as a binding rule in political
action.2 His point seemed more obscure than was

1 Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, James
Buchanan.

2 Lincoln and Douglas Deb., 198. At Chicago he said that he
would vote for the prohibition of slavery in a new Territory " in
spite of the Dred Scott decision." Lincoln and Douglas Deb.,
20 ; and see the rest of his speech on the same page. The Illinois
Republican Convention, June 16, 1858, expressed " condemnation
of the principles and tendencies of the extra-judicial opinions of
a majority of the judges, " as putting forth a " political heresy."
Holland, 159.

Years ago Salmon P. Chase had dared to say that, if the courts

130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

usual with him, and not satisfactory as an answer
to Douglas. But as matter of fact no one was
deceived by the amusing adage of the profession :
that the Courts do not make the law, but only
declare what it is. Every one knew that the law
was just what the judges chose from time to time
to say that it was, and that if judicial declarations
of the law were not reversed quite so often as le-
gislative makings of the law were repealed, it was
only because the identity of a bench is usually of
longer duration than the identity of a legislative
body. If the people, politically, willed the rever-
sal of the Dred Scott decision, it was sure in time
to be judicially reversed.1

Douglas boasted that the Democrats were a na-
tional party, whereas the "Black Republicans"
were a sectional body whose creed could not be
uttered south of Mason and Dixon's line. He was
assiduous in fastening upon Lincoln the name of
"Abolitionist," and "Black Republican," epithets
so unpopular that those who held the faith often
denied the title, and he only modified them by the
offensive admission that Lincoln's doctrines were
sometimes disingenuously weakened to suit certain
audiences: "His principles in the north [of Illi-
nois] are jet black; in the centre they are in color

would not overthrow the pro-slavery construction of the Consti-
tution, the people would do so, even if it should be " necessary to
overthrow the courts also." Warden's Life of Chase, 313.

1 For Lincoln's explanation of his position concerning the Dred

Scott decision, see Lincoln and Douglas Deb., 20.

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 131

a decent mulatto ; and in lower Egypt 1 they are
almost white."

Concerning sectionalism, Lincoln countered
fairly enough on his opponent by asking : Was it,
then, the case that it was slavery which was na-
tional, and freedom which was sectional ? Or, " Is
it the true test of the soundness of a doctrine that
in some places people won't let you proclaim it?"
But the remainder of Douglas's assault was by no
means to be disposed of by quick retort. When
Lincoln was pushed to formulate accurately his
views concerning the proper status of the negro in
the community, he had need of all his extraordi-
nary care in statement. Herein lay problems that
were vexing many honest citizens and clever men
besides himself, and were breeding much disagree-
ment among persons who all were anti -slavery in
a general way, but could by no means reach a com-
fortable unison concerning troublesome particu-
lars. The "all men free and equal" of the Con-
stitution, and the talk about human brotherhood
gave the Democrats wide scope for harassing anti-
slavery men with vexatious taunts and embarrass-
ing cross-interrogatories on practical points. "I
do not question," said Douglas, "Mr. Lincoln's
conscientious belief that the negro was made his
equal, and hence is his brother. But for my own
part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and
positively deny that he is my brother, or any kin
to me whatever." He said that "the signers of

1 A nickname for the southern part of Illinois.

132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

the Declaration had no reference to the negro . . .
or any other inferior and degraded race, when they
spoke of the equality of men," but meant only
"white men, of European birth and descent."
This topic opens the whole subject of Lincoln's
political affiliations and of his opinions concerning
slavery and the negro, opinions which seem to
have undergone no substantial change during the
interval betwixt this campaign and his election to
the presidency. Some selections from what he
said may sufficiently explain his position.

At Freeport, August 27, replying to a series of
questions from Douglas, he declared that he had
supposed himself, "since the organization of the
Eepublican party at Bloomington, in May, 1856,
bound as a party man by the platforms of the
party, then and since." He said: "I do not now,
nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional
repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law." He believed
that under the Constitution the Southerners were
entitled to such a law ; but thought that the exist-
ing law "should have been framed so as to be free
from some of the objections that pertain to it, with-
out lessening its efficiency." He would not "in-
troduce it as a new subject of agitation upon the
general question of slavery."

He should be "exceedingly sorry" ever to have
to pass upon the question of admitting more slave
States into the Union, and exceedingly glad to
know that another never would be admitted. But
" if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories dur-

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 133

ing the territorial existence of any one given Ter-
ritory, and then the people shall, having a fair
chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt
their constitution, do such an extraordinary thing
as to adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by
the actual presence of the institution among them,
I see no alternative, if we own the country, but
to admit them into the Union." He should also,
he said, be "exceedingly glad to see slavery abol-
ished in the District of Columbia," and he believed
that Congress had "constitutional power to abolish
it" there; but he would favor the measure only
upon condition : " First, that the abolition should
be gradual; second, that it should be on a vote
of the majority of qualified voters in the District;
and, third, that compensation should be made to
unwilling owners." As to the abolition of the
slave trade between the different States, he ac-
knowledged that he had not considered the matter
sufficiently to have reached a conclusion concern-
ing it. But if he should think that Congress had
power to effect such abolition, he should "not be
in favor of the exercise of that power unless upon
some conservative principle, akin to what I have
said in relation to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia." As to the territorial con-
troversy, he said: "I am impliedly, if not ex-
pressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty
of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United
States Territories." Concerning the acquisition
of new territory he said: "I am not generally op-

134 ABB AH AM LINCOLN.

posed to honest acquisition of territory; and in
any given case I would or would not oppose such
acquisition, according as I might think such acqui-
sition would or would not aggravate the slavery
question among ourselves." The statement de-
rived its immediate importance from the well-
known purpose of the administration and a con-
siderable party in the South very soon to acquire
Cuba. All these utterances were certainly clear
enough, and were far from constituting Abolition-
ist doctrine, though they were addressed to an
audience "as strongly tending to Abolitionism as
any audience in the State of Illinois," and Mr.
Lincoln believed that he was saying "that which,
if it would be offensive to any persons and render
them enemies to himself, would be offensive to
persons in this audience."

At Quincy Lincoln gave his views concerning
Republicanism with his usual unmistakable accu-
racy, and certainly he again differentiated it widely
from Abolitionism. The Republican party, he
said, think slavery "a moral, a social, and a polit-
ical wrong." Any man who does not hold this
opinion "is misplaced and ought to leave us.
While, on the other hand, if there be any man in
the Republican party who is impatient over the
necessity springing from its actual presence, and
is impatient of the Constitutional guaranties
thrown around it, and would act in disregard of
these, he, too, is misplaced, standing with us.
He will find his place somewhere else ; for we have

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 135

a due regard . . . for all these things." "I have
always hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist,
. . . but I have always been quiet about it until
this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska
bill again." He repeated often that he had "no
purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with
the institution of slavery in the States where it
exists;" that he had "no lawful right to do so,"
and "no inclination to do so." He said that his
declarations as to the right of the negro to "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," were de-
signed only to refer to legislation "about any new
country which is not already cursed with the ac-
tual presence of the evil, — slavery." He denied
having ever "manifested any impatience with the
necessities that spring from the . . . actual exist-
ence of slavery among us, where it does already
exist."

He dwelt much upon the equality clause of the
Constitution. If we begin "making exceptions to
it, where will it stop ? If one man says it does not
mean a negro, why not another say it does not
mean some other man? " Only within three years
past had any one doubted that negroes were in-
cluded by this language. But he said that, while
the authors "intended to include all men, they did
not mean to declare all men equal in all respects,
... in color, size, intellect, moral development,
or social capacity," but only "equal in certain in-
alienable rights." "Anything that argues me into
his [Douglas's] idea of perfect social and political

136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

equality with the negro is but a specious and fan-
tastic arrangement of words, by which a man can
prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse.
... I have no purpose to produce political and
social equality between the white and the black
races. There is a physical difference between the
two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever
forbid their living together upon the footing of
perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a
necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well
as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to
which I belong having the superior position. . . .
But I hold that . . . there is no reason in the
world why the negro is not entitled to all the
natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of
Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much
entitled to these as the white man. I agree with
Judge Douglas that he is not my equal in many
respects, — certainly not in color, perhaps not in
moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right
to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else,
which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the
equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every
living man" Later at Charleston he reiterated
much of this in almost identical language, and
then in his turn took his fling at Douglas: "I
am not in favor of making voters or jurors of ne-
groes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor
to intermarry with white people. ... I do not
understand that because I do not want a negro wo-

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 137

man for a slave I must necessarily want her for a
wife. My understanding is that I can just let her
alone. ... I have never had the least apprehen-
sion that I or my friends would marry negroes, if
there was no law to keep them from it; but as
Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great
apprehension that they might, if there were no law
to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn
pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law
of this State, which forbids the marrying of white
people with negroes."

By all this it is made entirely evident that Lin-
coln held a faith widely different from that of the
great crusading leaders of Abolitionism at the
East.1 Equally marked was the difference between
him and them in the matters of temper and of the
attitude taken towards opponents. The absence of
any sense of personal hostility towards those who
assailed him with unsparing vindictiveness was a
trait often illustrated in his after life, and which
was now noted with surprise, for it was rare in the
excited politics of those days. In this especial
campaign both contestants honestly intended to
refrain from personalities, but the difference be-
tween their ways of doing so was marked. Doug-

1 Henry Wilson has made his criticism in the words that " some
of his [Lincoln's] assertions and admissions were both unsatisfac-
tory and offensive to anti-slavery men ; betrayed too much of the
spirit of caste and prejudice against color, and sound harshly dis-
sonant by the side of the Proclamation of Emancipation and the
grand utterances of his later state papers." Bise and Fall of the
Slave Power, ii. 576.

138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

las, under the temptation of high ability in that
line, held himself in check by an effort which was
often obvious and not always entirely successful.
But Lincoln never seemed moved by the desire.
"All I have to ask," he said, "is that we talk
reasonably and rationally;" and again: "I hope
to deal in all things fairly with Judge Douglas."
No innuendo, no artifice, in any speech, gave the
lie to these protestations. Besides this, his denun-
ciations were always against slavery, and never
against slave-holders. The emphasis of condem-
nation, the intensity of feeling, were never ex-
pended against persons. By this course, unusual
among the Abolitionists, he not only lost nothing
in force and impressiveness, but, on the contrary,
his attack seemed to gain in effectiveness by being
directed against no personal object, but exclusively
against a practice. His war was against slavery,
not against the men and women of the South who
owned slaves. At Ottawa he read from the Peoria
speech of 1854: "I have no prejudice against the
Southern people. They are just what we would
[should] be in their situation. If slavery did not
now exist among them, they would not introduce
it. If it did now exist among us, we should not
instantly give it up. . . . It does seem to me that
systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted ;
but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake
to judge our brethren of the South." Repeatedly
he admitted the difficulty of the problem, and fas-
tened no blame upon those Southerners who ex-

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 139

cused themselves for not expelling the evil on the
ground that they did not know how to do so. At
Peoria he said: "If all earthly power were given
me, I should not know what to do as to the exist-
ing institution." He contributed some sugges-
tions which certainly were nothing better than
chimerical. Deportation to Africa was his favor-
ite scheme; he also proposed that it would be
"best for all concerned to have the colored popu-
lation in a State by themselves." But he did not
abuse men who declined to adopt his methods.
Though he was dealing with a question which was
arousing personal antagonisms as bitter as any
that history records, yet he never condemned any
one, nor ever passed judgment against his fellow-
men.

Diagnosis would perhaps show that the trait
thus illustrated was rather mental than moral.
This absence of animosity and reproach as towards
individuals found its root not so much in human
charity as in fairness of thinking. Lincoln's
ways of mental working are not difficult to dis-
cover. He thought slowly, cautiously, profoundly,
and with a most close accuracy ; but above all else
he thought fairly , This capacity far transcended,
or, more correctly, differed from, what is ordinar-
ily called the judicial habit of mind. Many men
can weigh arguments without letting prejudice
get into either scale; but Lincoln carried on the
whole process of thinking not only with an equal
clearness of perception, but also with an entire

140 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

impartiality of liking or disliking for both sides.
His aim, while he was engaged in thinking, was
to discover what was really true ; and later when
he spoke to others his purpose was to show them
the truth which he had discovered and to state to
them on what grounds he believed it to be the
truth ; it did not involve a judgment against the
individuals who failed to recognize that truth.
His singular trait of impersonality was not made
more apparent in any other way. His effort never
was to defeat the person who happened to be his
adversary, but always was to overcome the argu-
ments of that adversary. Primarily he was dis-
cussing a topic and establishing a truth; it was
only incidental that in doing these things he had
to oppose a man. It is noteworthy that his oppo-
nents never charged him with mis-stating their case
in order to make an apparently effective answer to
it. On the contrary, his hope of success seemed
always to lie in having both sides presented with
the highest degree of clearness and honesty. He
had perfect confidence in the ultimate triumph of
the truth ; he was always willing to tie fast to it,
according as he could see it, and then to bide time
with it. This being a genuine faith and not mere
lip-service, he used the same arguments to others
which he used to himself, and staked his final suc-
cess upon the probability that what had persuaded
his mind would in time persuade also the minds of
other intelligent men. It has been well said of
him by an excellent judge: "He loved the truth,

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 141

for the truth's sake. He would not argue from
a false premise, or be deceived himself, or deceive
others, by a false conclusion. . . . He did not
seek to say merely the thing which was best for
that day's debate, but the thing which would stand
the test of time, and square itself with eternal jus-
tice. . . . His logic was severe and faultless. He
did not resort to fallacy." 1

To return to the points made in the debate:
Douglas laid down the "great principle of non-
interference and non-intervention by Congress
with slavery in the States and Territories alike;"
which he assured his audience would enable us to
"continue at peace with one another." In the
same connection he endeavored to silver-coat for
Northern palates the bitter pill of the Dred Scott
decision, by declaring that the people of any State
or Territory might withhold that protecting legis-
lation, those "friendly police regulations," without
which slavery could not exist. But this was, in-
deed, a "lame, illogical, evasive answer," which
enabled Lincoln to "secure an advantage in the
national relations of the contest which he held to
the end."

Lincoln, in replying, agreed that "all the States
have the right to do exactly as they please about
all their domestic relations, including that of slav-
ery." But he said that the proposition that slav-
ery could not enter a new country without police
regulations was historically false; and that the

1 Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 145.

142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

facts of the Dred Scott case itself showed that
there was "vigor enough in slavery to plant itself
in a new country even against unfriendly legisla-
tion." Beyond this issue of historical fact, Doug-
las had already taken and still dared to maintain
a position which proved to be singularly ill chosen.
The right to hold slaves as property in the Terri-
tories had lately, to the infinite joy of the South,
been declared by the Supreme Court to be guaran-
teed by the Constitution; and now Douglas had
the audacity to repeat that notion of his, so ab-
horrent to all friends of slavery, — that this inval-
uable right could be made practically worthless
by unfriendly local legislation, or even by the
negative hostility of withholding friendly legisla-
tion! From the moment when this deadly sug-
gestion fell from his ingenious lips, the Southern
Democracy turned upon him with vindictive hate
and marked him for destruction. He had also
given himself into the hands of his avowed and
natural enemies. The doctrine, said Mr. Lin-
coln, is "no less than that a thing may lawfully
be driven away from a place where it has a lawful
right to be." "If you were elected members of
the Legislature, what would be the first thing
you would have to do, before entering upon your
duties? Swear to support the Constitution of the
United States. Suppose you believe, as Judge
Douglas does, that the Constitution of the United
States guarantees to your neighbor the right to
hold slaves in that Territory, — that they are his

Lnh -VJ-c.B-u.ttrE

BRIG; GEN. ROBERT ANDERSON.

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 143

property, — how can you clear your oaths, unless
you give him such legislation as is necessary to
enable him to enjoy that property ? What do you
understand by supporting the Constitution of a
State, or of the United States ? Is it not to give
such constitutional helps to the rights established
by that Constitution as may be practically needed ?
. . . And what I say here will hold with still
more force against the Judge's doctrine of 'un-
friendly legislation.' How could you, having
sworn to support the Constitution, and believing
it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the Terri-
tories, assist in legislation intended to defeat that
right?" "Is not Congress itself under obligation
to give legislative support to any right that is es-
tablished under the United States Constitution?"
Upon what other principle do "many of us, who
are opposed to slavery upon principle, give our
acquiescence to a Fugitive Slave Law?" Does
Douglas mean to say that a territorial legislature,
"by passing unfriendly laws," can "nullify a
Constitutional right?" He put to Douglas the
direct and embarrassing query: "If the slave-
holding citizens of a United States Territory
should need and demand Congressional legislation
for the protection of their slave property in such
Territory, would you, as a member of Congress,
vote for or against such legislation?" "Kepeat
that," cried Douglas, ostentatiously; "I want to
answer that question." But he never composed
his reply.

144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Another kindred question had already been put
by Lincoln: "Can the people of a United States
Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of
any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery
from its limits, prior to the formation of a State
Constitution? " Friends advised him not to force
this, as it seemed against the immediate policy of
the present campaign. But it was never his way
to subordinate his own deliberate opinion to the
opinions of advisers ; and on this occasion he was
merciless in pressing this question. A story has
been very generally repeated that he told the pro-
testers that, whatever might be the bearing on the
senator ship, Douglas could not answer that ques-
tion and be elected president of the United States
in 1860. "I am killing larger game," he said;
"the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."1
A few legends of this kind are extant, which tend
to indicate that Lincoln already had in mind the
presidential nomination, and was fighting the
present fight with an eye to that greater one in
the near future. It is not easy to say how much
credit should be given to such tales; they may
not be wholly inventions, but a remark which is
uttered with little thought may later easily take on
a strong color in the light of subsequent develop-
ments.

In presenting the Republican side of the ques-

1 N. and H., ii. 159, 160, 163; Arnold, 151; Lamon, 415, 416,
and see 406 ; Holland, 189 ; Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave
Power, ii. 576 ; Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 148.

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 145

tion Lincoln seemed to feel a duty beyond that of
merely out-arguing his opponent. He bore the
weighty burden of a responsibility graver than
personal success. He might prevail in the opin-
ions of his fellow-citizens; without this instant
triumph he might so present his cause that the
jury of posterity would declare that the truth
lay with him; he might even convince both the
present and the coming generations; and though
achieving all these triumphs, he might still fall
far short of the peculiar and exacting require-
ment of the occasion. For the winning of the
senatorship was the insignificant part of what he
had undertaken; his momentous charge was to
maintain a grand moral crusade, to stimulate and
to vindicate a great uprising in the cause of hu-
manity and of justice. His full appreciation of
this is entirely manifest in the tone of his speeches.
They have an earnestness, a gravity, at times even
a solemnity, unusual in such encounters in any era
or before any audiences, but unprecedented "on
the stump" before the uproarious gatherings of
the West at that day. Eepeatedly he stigmatized
slavery as "a moral, a social, a political evil."
Very impressively he denounced the positions of
an opponent who "cared not whether slavery was
voted down or voted up," who said that slavery
was not to be differentiated from the many domes-
tic institutions and daily affairs which civilized
societies control by police regulations. He said
that slavery could not be treated as "only equal

146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

to the cranberry laws of Indiana;" that slaves
could not be put " upon a par with onions and po-
tatoes;" that to Douglas he supposed that the in-
stitution really "looked small," but that a great
proportion of the American people regarded slav-
ery as ua vast moral evil." "The real issue in
this controversy — the one pressing upon every
mind — is the sentiment on the part of one class
that looks upon the institution of slavery as a
wrong, and of another class that does not look
upon it as a wrong. . . . No man can logically
say he does not care whether a wrong is voted up
or voted down. He [Douglas] contends that what-
ever community wants slaves has a right to have
them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But
if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right
to do wrong. He says that, upon the score of
equality, slaves should be allowed to go into a new
Territory, like other property. This is strictly
logical if there is no difference between it and
other property. . . . But if you insist that one is
wrong and the other right, there is no use to insti-
tute a comparison between right and wrong. . . .
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will
continue in this country when these poor tongues
of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It
is the eternal struggle between these two principles,
right and wrong, throughout the world. They
are the two principles that have stood face to face
from the beginning of time, and will ever continue
to struggle. The one is the common right of hu-

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 147

inanity, and the other the divine right of kings.
It is the same principle in whatever shape it devel-
ops itself. It is the same spirit that says: 'You
work and toil and earn bread, and I '11 eat it. ' '
"I ask you if it is not a false philosophy? Is it
not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build
up a system of policy upon the basis of caring no-
thing about the very thing that everybody does care
the most about f "

We cannot leave these speeches without a word
concerning their literary quality. In them we
might have looked for vigor that would be a little
uncouth, wit that would be often coarse, a logic
generally sound but always clumsy, — in a word,
tolerably good substance and very poor form. We
are surprised, then, to find many and high excel-
lences in art. As it is with Bacon's essays, so it
is with these speeches : the more attentively they
are read the more striking appears the closeness
of their texture both in logic and in language.
Clear thought is accurately expressed. Each sen-
tence has its special errand, and each word its
individual importance. There is never either too
much or too little. The work is done with clean
precision and no waste. Nowhere does one pause
to seek a meaning or to recover a connection ; and
an effort to make out a syllabus shows that the
most condensed statement has already been used.
There are scintillations of wit and humor, but they
are not very numerous. When Lincoln was urged
to adopt a more popular style, he replied: "The

148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

occasion is too serious; the issues are too grave.
I do not seek applause, or to amuse the people, but
to convince them." This spirit was upon him
from the beginning to the end. Had he been ad-
dressing a bench of judges, subject to a close limi-
tation of minutes, he would have won credit by the
combined economy and force which were displayed
in these harangues to general assemblages. To
speak of the lofty tone of these speeches comes
dangerously near to the distasteful phraseology
of extravagant laudation, than which nothing else
can produce upon honest men a worse impression.
Yet it is a truth visible to every reader that at the
outset Lincoln raised the discussion to a very
high plane, and held it there throughout. The
truth which he had to sustain was so great that it
was perfectly simple, and he had the good sense to
utter it with appropriate simplicity. In no speech
was there fervor or enthusiasm or rhetoric; he
talked to the reason and the conscience of his au-
ditors, not to their passions. Yet the depth of his
feeling may be measured by the story that once in
the canvass he said to a friend : " Sometimes, in
the excitement of speaking, I seem to see the end
of slavery. I feel that the time is soon coming
when the sun shall shine, the rain fall, on no man
who shall go forth to unrequited toil. How this
will come, when it will come, by whom it will
come, I cannot tell, — but that time will surely
come."1 It is just appreciation, and not extra va-

1 Arnold, 144. This writer speaks with discriminating' praise

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 149

gance, to say that the cheap and miserable little
volume, now out of print, containing in bad news-
paper type, "The Lincoln and Douglas Debates, " 1
holds some of the masterpieces of oratory of all
ages and nations.

The immediate result of the campaign was the
triumph of Douglas, who had certainly made not
only a very able and brilliant but a splendidly gal-
lant fight, with Eepublicans assailing him in front
and Administrationists in rear.2 Lincoln was
disappointed. His feelings had been so deeply
engaged, he had worked so strenuously, and the
result had been so much in doubt, that defeat
was trying. But he bore it with his wonted reso-
lute equanimity. He said that he felt "like the
boy that stumped his toe, — 'it hurt too bad to
laugh, and he was too big to cry.' " In fact, there
were encouraging elements.3 The popular vote
stood,4 Eepublicans, 126,084; Douglas Democrats,

concerning Lincoln's oratory, p. 139. It is an illustration of Lin-
coln's habit of adopting for permanent use any expression that
pleased him, that this same phrase had been used by him in a
speech made two years before this time. Holland, 151.

1 Published in Columbus, in 1860, for campaign purposes, from
copies furnished by Lincoln; see his letter to Central Exec.
Comm., Dec. 19, 1859, on fly-leaf.

2 Many tributes have been paid to Douglas by writers who op-
pose his opinions; e.g., Arnold says: "There is, on the whole,
hardly any greater personal triumph in the history of American
politics than his reelection,' ' pp. 149, 150 ; Blaine, Twenty Years
of Congress, i. 149.

3 See Lincoln's letter to Judd, quoted N. and H., ii. 167 ; also
Ibid. 169.

4 Raymond, 76.

150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

121,940; Lecompton Democrats, 5,091. But the
apportionment of districts was such that the legis-
lature contained a majority for Douglas.1 So the
prestige of victory seemed separated from its
fruits; for the nation, attentively watching this
duel, saw that the new man had convinced upwards
of four thousand voters more than had the great
leader of the Democracy. Douglas is reported to
have said that, during his sixteen years in Con-
gress, he had found no man in the Senate whom
he would not rather encounter in debate than Lin-
coln. If it was true that Lincoln was already
dreaming of the presidency, he was a sufficiently
shrewd politician to see that his prospects were
greatly improved by this campaign. He had
worked hard for what he had gained ; he had been
travelling incessantly to and fro and delivering
speeches in unbroken succession during about one
hundred of the hot days of the Western summer,
and speeches not of a commonplace kind, but
which severely taxed the speaker. After all was
over, he was asked by the State Committee to con-
tribute to the campaign purse! He replied: "I
am willing to pay according to my ability, but I
am the poorest hand living to get others to pay.
/ have been on expense so long, without earning
anything, that I am absolutely without money now
for even household expenses. Still, if you can put
in $250 for me, ... I will allow it when you and

1 The Senate showed 14 Democrats, 11 Republicans; the
House, 40 Democrats, 35 Republicans.

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 151

I settle the private matter between us. This,
with what I have already paid, . . . will exceed
my subscription of $500. This, too, is exclusive
of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, all
of which being added to my loss of time and busi-
ness bears pretty heavily upon one no better off
than I am. . . . You are feeling badly; 'and this,
too, shall pass away; ' never fear."

The platform which, with such precision and
painstaking, Lincoln had constructed for himself
was made by him even more ample and more strong
by a few speeches delivered in the interval between
the close of this great campaign and his nomina-
tion by the Eepublicans for the presidency. In
Ohio an important canvass for the governorship
took place, and Douglas went there, and made
speeches filled with allusions to Lincoln and the
recent Illinois campaign. Even without this pro-
vocation Lincoln knew, by keen instinct, that
where Douglas was there he should be also. In
no other way had he yet appeared to such advan-
tage as in encountering "the Little Giant." To
Ohio, accordingly, he hastened, and spoke at
Columbus and at Cincinnati.1 To the citizens of
the latter place he said: "This is the first time in
my life that I have appeared before an audience
in so great a city as this. I therefore make this
appearance under some degree of embarrassment."
There was little novelty in substance, but much

1 In September, 1859. These are included in the volume of
The Lincoln and Douglas Debates, printed at Columbus, 1860.

152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

in treatment. Thus, at Cincinnati, he imagined
himself addressing Kentuckians, and showed them
that their next nominee for the presidency ought
to be his "distinguished friend, Judge Douglas; "
for "in all that there is a difference between you
and him, I understand he is sincerely for you, and
more wisely for you than you are for yourselves."
Through him alone pro- slavery men retained any
hold upon the free States of the North; and in
those States "in every possible way he can, he
constantly moulds the public opinion to your ends."
Ingeniously but fairly he sketched Douglas as the
most efficient among the pro-slavery leaders. Per-
haps the clever and truthful picture may have led
Mr. Greeley and some other gentlemen at the East
to suspect that they had been inconsiderate in their
choice between the Western rivals; and perhaps,
also, Lincoln, while addressing imaginary Ken-
tuckians, had before his inner eye some Eastern
auditors. For at the time he did not know that
his voice would ever be heard at any point nearer
to their ears than the hall in which he then stood.
Within a few weeks, however, this unlooked-for
good fortune befell. In October, 1859, he was
invited to speak in the following winter in New
York. That the anti-slavery men of that city
wished to test him by personal observation signified
that his reputation was national, and that the high-
est aspirations were, therefore, not altogether pre-
sumptuous. He accepted gladly, and immediately
began to prepare an address which probably cost

TTfiwYnrk. D. A:i.ipleto]i& Co

zr*

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 153

him more labor than any other speech which he
ever made. He found time, however, in December
to make a journey through Kansas, where he de-
livered several speeches, which have not been pre-
served but are described as "repetitions of those
previously made in Illinois." Lamon tells us that
the journey was an "ovation," and that "wherever
Lincoln went, he was met by vast assemblages of
people." The population of this agricultural State
was hardly in a condition to furnish "vast assem-
blages" at numerous points, but doubtless the vis-
itor received gratifying assurance that upon this
battle-ground of slavery and anti-slavery the win-
ning party warmly appreciated his advocacy of
their cause.

On Saturday, February 25, 1860, Lincoln ar-
rived in New York. On Monday his hosts " found
him dressed in a sleek and shining suit of new
black, covered with very apparent creases and
wrinkles, acquired by being packed too closely and
too long in his little valise. He felt uneasy in his
new clothes and a strange place." Certainly no-
thing in his previous experience had prepared him
to meet with entire indifference an audience of
metropolitan critics ; indeed, had the surroundings
been more familiar, he had enough at stake to tax
his equanimity when William Cullen Bryant intro-
duced him simply as "an eminent citizen of the
West, hitherto known to you only by reputation."
Probably the first impression made upon those
auditors by the ungainly Westerner in his outland-

154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

ish garb were not the same which they carried
home with them a little later. The speech was so
condensed that a sketch of it is not possible. For-
tunately it had the excellent quality of steadily
expanding in interest and improving to the end.

Of the Dred Scott case he cleverly said that the
Courts had decided it "in a sort of way /" but,
after all, the decision was "mainly based upon a
mistaken statement of fact, — the statement in the
opinion that 'the right of property in a slave is
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitu-
tion.'"

In closing, he begged the Kepublicans, in behalf
of peace and harmony, to "do nothing through
passion and ill-temper; " but he immediately went
on to show the antagonism between Eepublican
opinion and Democratic opinion with a distinct-
ness which left no hope of harmony, and very lit-
tle hope of peace. To satisfy the Southerners, he
said, we must "cease to call slavery wrong, and
join them in calling it right. And this must be
done thoroughly, — done in acts as well as in
words. . . . We must arrest and return their
fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must
pull down our free-state Constitutions. ... If
slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and consti-
tutions against it are themselves wrong, and should
be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we
cannot object to its nationality, its universality;
if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its
extension, its enlargement. All they ask we could

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 155

readily grant, if we thought slavery right ; all we
ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it
wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking
it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends
the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they
do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recog-
nition, as being right ; but thinking it wrong, as
we do, can we yield to them ? . . . Wrong as we
think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
where it is, because that much is due to the neces-
sity arising from its actual presence in the nation ;
but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow
it to spread into the national Territories, and to
overrun us here in these free States? If our sense
of duty forbids this ... let us be diverted by no
sophistical contrivances, such as groping for some
middle ground between the right and the wrong,
vain as the search for a man who should be neither
a living man nor a dead man ; such as a policy of
'don't care ' on a question about which all true
men do care; such as Union appeals beseeching
true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing
the divine rule and calling not the sinners but the
righteous to repentance."

The next morning the best newspapers gave full
reports of the speech, with compliments. The
columns of the "Evening Post" were generously
declared to be "indefinitely elastic " for such utter-
ances; and the "Tribune" expressed commenda-
tion wholly out of accord with the recent notions
of its editor. The rough fellow from the crude

156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

West had made a powerful impression upon the
cultivated gentlemen of the East.

From New York Lincoln went to Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut.
In this last - named State he delivered speeches
which are said to have contributed largely to the
Republican success in the closely contested election
then at hand. In Manchester it was noticed that
"He did not abuse the South, the administration,
or the Democrats, or indulge in any personalities,
with the exception of a few hits at Douglas's no-
tions."1

These speeches of 1858, 1859, and 1860, have a
very great value as contributions to history. Dur-
ing that period every dweller in the United States
was hotly concerned about this absorbing question
of slavery, advancing his own views, weighing or
encountering the arguments of others, quarrelling,
perhaps, with his oldest friends and his nearest
kindred, — for about this matter men easily quar-
relled and rarely compromised. Every man who
fancied that he could speak in public got upon
some platform in city, town, or village, and secured
an audience by his topic if not by his ability ; every
one who thought that he could write found some
way to print what he had to say upon a subject of
which readers never tired ; and for whatever pur-
pose two or three men were gathered together, they
were not likely to separate without a few words
about North and South, pro-slavery and anti-slav-

1 The Mirror, quoted by Lamon, 442.

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 157

ery. Never was any matter more harried and ran-
sacked by disputation. Now to all the speaking
and writing of the Republicans Lincoln's condensed
speeches were what a syllabus is to an elaborate
discourse, what a lawyer's brief is to his verbal
argument. Perhaps they may better be likened to
an anti-slavery gospel ; as the New Testament is
supposed to cover the whole ground of Christian
doctrines and Christian ethics, so that theologians
and preachers innumerable have only been able to
make elaborations or glosses upon the original text,
so Lincoln's speeches contain the whole basis of
the anti-slavery cause as maintained by the Repub-
lican party. They also set forth a considerable
part of the Southern position, doubtless as fairly
as the machinations of the Devil are set forth in
Holy Writ. They only rather gingerly refrain
from speaking of the small body of ultra- Aboli-
tionists, — for while Lincoln was far from agreeing
with these zealots, he felt that it was undesirable
to widen by any excavation upon his side the chasm
between them and the Republicans. So the fact
is that the whole doctrine of Republicanism, as
it existed during the political campaign which re-
sulted in the election of Lincoln, also all the his-
torical facts supporting that doctrine, were clearly
and accurately stated in these speeches. Specific
points were more elaborated by other persons ; but
every seed was to be found in this granary.

This being the case, it is worth noticing that
both Lincoln and Douglas confined their dispu-

158 ABE AH AM LINCOLN.

tation closely to the slavery question. Disunion
and secession were words familiar in every ear,
yet Lincoln referred to these things only twice
or thrice, and incidentally, while Douglas ignored
them. This fact is fraught with meaning. Amer-
ican writers and American readers have always
met upon the tacit understanding that the Union
was the chief cause of, and the best justification
for, the war. An age may come when historians,
treating our history as we treat that of Greece,
stirred by no emotion at the sight of the "Stars
and Stripes," moved by no patriotism at the name
of the United States of America, will seek a deeper
philosophy to explain this obstinate, bloody, costly
struggle. Such writers may say, that a rich, civil-
ized multitude of human beings, possessors of the
quarter of a continent, believing it best for their
interests to set up an independent government for
themselves, fell back upon the right of revolution,
though they chose not to call it by that name.
Now even if it be possible to go so far as to say
that every nation has always a right to preserve by
force, if it can, its own integrity, certainly it can-
not be stated as a further truth that no portion
of a nation can ever be justified in endeavoring
to obtain an independent national existence; no
citizen of this country can admit this, but must
say that such an endeavor is justifiable or not jus-
tifiable according as its cause and basis are right
or wrong. Far down, then, at the very bottom
lay the question whether the Southerners had a

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. 159

sufficient cause upon which to base a revolution.
Now this question was hardly conclusively an-
swered by the perfectly true statement that the
North had not interfered with Southern rights.
Southerners might admit this, and still believe
that their welfare could be best subserved by a
government wholly their own. So the very bot-
tom question of all still remained : Was the South
endeavoring to establish a government of its own
for a justifiable reason and a right purpose ? Now
the avowed purpose was to establish on an endur-
ing foundation a permanent slave empire ; and the
declared reason was, that slavery was not safe
within the Union. Underneath the question of
the Union therefore lay, logically, the question of
slavery.

Lincoln and the other Republican leaders said
that, if slavery extension was prevented, then
slavery was in the way of extinction. If the
assertion was true, it pretty clearly followed that
the South could retain slavery only by indepen-
dence and a complete imperial control within the
limits of its own homogeneous nationality; for
undeniably the preponderant northern mass was
becoming firmly resolved that slavery should not
be extended, however it might be tolerated within
its present limits. So still, by anti-slavery state-
ment itself, the ultimate question was: whether
or not the preservation of slavery was a right and
sufficient cause or purpose for establishing an
independent nationality. Lincoln, therefore, went
direct to the logical heart of the contention, when

160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

he said that the real dispute was whether slavery-
was a right thing or a wrong thing. If slavery-
was a right thing, a Union, conducted upon a policy
which was believed to doom it to "ultimate ex-
tinction " was not a right thing. But if slavery
was a wrong thing, a revolution undertaken with
the purpose of making it perpetual was also a
wrong thing. Therefore, from beginning to end
Lincoln talked about slavery. By so doing he did
what he could to give to the war a character far
higher even than a war of patriotism, for he ex-
tended its meaning far beyond the age and the
country of its occurrence, and made of it not a war
for the United States alone, but a war for hu-
manity, a war for ages and peoples yet to come.
In like manner, he himself also gained the right to
be regarded as much more than a great party
leader, even more than a great patriot ; for he be-
came a champion of mankind and the defender of
the chief right of man. I do not mean to say that
he saw these things in this light at the moment, or
that he accurately formulated the precise relation-
ship and fundamental significance of all that was
then in process of saying and doing. Time must
elapse, and distance must enable one to get a com-
prehensive view, before the philosophy of an era
like that of the civil war becomes intelligible.
But the philosophy is not the less correct because
those who were framing it piece by piece did not
at any one moment project before their mental
vision the whole in its finished proportions and re-
lationship.

CHAPTER VI.

ELECTION.

Me. J. W. Fell, a politician of Pennsylvania,
says that after the debates of 1858 he urged Lin-
coln to seek the Republican nomination for the
presidency in 1860. Lincoln, however, replied
curtly that men like Seward and Chase were enti-
tled to take precedence, and that no such "good
luck" was in store for him. In March, 1859, he
wrote to another person : " In regard to the other
matter that you speak of, I beg that you will not
give it further mention. I do not think I am
fit for the presidency." He said the same to the
editor of the "Central Illinois Gazette; " but this
gentleman "brought him out in the issue of May
4," and "thence the movement spread rapidly and
strongly."1 In the winter of 1859-60 sundry
"intimate friends," active politicians of Illinois,
pressed him to consent to be mentioned as a can-
didate. He considered the matter over night and
then gave them the desired permission, at the same
time saying that he would not accept the vice-
presidency.

Being now fairly started in the race, he used

1 Lamon, 422.

162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

all his well-known skill as a politician to forward
his campaign, though nothing derogatory is to
be inferred from these words as to his conduct
or methods. February 9, 1860, he wrote to Mr.
Judd: "I am not in a position where it would
hurt much for me not to be nominated on the na-
tional ticket; but I am where it would hurt some
for me not to get the Illinois delegates. . . . Can
you help me a little in this matter at your end of
the vineyard?" This point of the allegiance of
his own State was soon made right. The Kepub-
lican State Convention met in the "Wigwam" at
Decatur, May 9 and 10, 1860. Governor Oglesby,
who presided, suggested that a distinguished citi-
zen, whom Illinois delighted to honor, was pres-
ent, and that he should be invited to a place on
the stand ; and at once, amid a tumult of applause,
Lincoln was lifted over the heads of the crowd to
the platform. John Hanks then theatrically en-
tered, bearing a couple of fence rails, and a flag
with the legend that they were from a "lot made
by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the
Sangamon Bottom, in the year 1830." The sym-
pathetic roar rose again. Then Lincoln made a
"speech," appropriate to the occasion. At last,
attention was given to business, and the Convention
resolved that Abraham Lincoln was the first choice
of the Republican party of Illinois for the presi-
dency, and instructed their delegates to the nomi-
nating convention "to use all honorable means to
secure his nomination, and to cast the vote of the
State as a unit for him."

ELECTION. 163

With the opening of the spring of 1860 the sev-
eral parties began the campaign in earnest. The
Democratic Convention met first, at Charleston,
April 23 ; and immediately the line of disruption
opened. Upon the one side stood Douglas, with
the moderate men and nearly all the Northern
delegates, while against him were the advocates
of extreme Southern doctrines, supported by the
administration and by most of the delegates from
the "Cotton States." The majority of the com-
mittee appointed to draft the platform were anti-
Douglas men ; but their report was rejected, and
that offered by the pro-Douglas minority was sub-
stituted, 165 yeas to 138 nays.1 Thereupon the
delegations of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and
Texas, and sundry delegates from other States,
withdrew from the Convention,2 taking away 45
votes out of a total of 303. Those who remained
declared the vote of two thirds of a full Conven-
tion, i. 6., 202 votes, to be necessary for a choice.
Then during three days fifty-seven ballots were
cast, Douglas being always far in the lead, but
never polling more than 152 J votes. At last, on
May 3, an adjournment was had until June 18,
at Baltimore. At this second meeting contesting

1 The majority report was supported by 15 slave States and 2
free States, casting 127 electoral votes ; the minority report was
supported by 15 free States, casting 176 electoral votes. N. and H.,
ii. 234.

2 This action was soon afterward approved in a manifesto signed
by Jefferson Davis, Toombs, Iverson, Slidell, Benjamin, Mason
and others. Ibid. 245.

164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

delegations appeared, and the decisions were uni-
formly in favor of the Douglas men, which pro-
voked another secession of the extremist Southern
men. A ballot showed 173J votes for Douglas
out of a total of 191 J; the total was less than two
thirds of the full number of the original Conven-
tion, and therefore it was decided that any person
receiving two thirds of the votes cast by the dele-
gates present should be deemed the nominee. The
next ballot gave Douglas 181^. Herschel V.
Johnson of Georgia was nominated for vice-presi-
dent.

On June 28, also at Baltimore, there came to-
gether a collection composed of original seceders
at Charleston, and of some who had been rejected
and others who had seceded at Baltimore. Very
few Northern men were present, and the body in
fact represented the Southern wing of the Demo-
cracy. Having, like its competitor, the merit of
knowing its own mind, it promptly nominated
John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and Joseph
Lane of Oregon, and adopted the radical platform
which had been reported at Charleston.

These doings opened, so that it could never be
closed, that seam of which the thread had long
been visible athwart the surface of the old Demo-
cratic party. The great record of discipline and
of triumph, which the party had made when united
beneath the dominion of imperious leaders, was
over, and forever. Those questions which Lin-
coln obstinately and against advice had insisted

ELECTION. 165

upon pushing in 1858 had forced this disastrous
development of irreconcilable differences. The
answers, which Douglas could not shirk, had alien-
ated the most implacable of men, the dictators
of the Southern Democracy. His "looking-both-
ways " theory would not fit with their policy, and
their policy was and must be immutable ; modifi-
cation was in itself defeat. On the other hand,
what he said constituted the doctrine to which the
mass of the Northern Democracy firmly held. So
now, although Eepublicans admitted that it was
"morally certain" that the Democratic party,
holding together, could carry the election,1 yet
these men from the Cotton States could not take
victory and Douglas together.2 It had actually
come to this, that in spite of all that Douglas had
done for the slave-holders, they now marked him
for destruction at any cost. Many also believe
that they had another motive; that they had ma-
tured their plans for secession; and that they did
not mean to have the scheme disturbed or post-
poned by an ostensibly Democratic triumph in the
shape of the election of Douglas.

In May the convention of the Constitutional
Union party met, also at Baltimore. This organ-
ization was a sudden outgrowth designed only to
meet the present emergency. Its whole political
doctrine lay in the opening words of the one reso-
lution which constituted its platform: "That it is
both the part of patriotism and of duty to recog-

1 Greeley's Amer. Conflict, i. 326. 2 Ibid. i. 306, 307.

166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

nize no political principle other than the Constitu-
tion of the country, the union of the States, and
the enforcement of the laws." This party gath-
ered nearly all the peaceable elements of the com-
munity; it assumed a deprecatory attitude between
angry contestants, and of course received the abuse
and contempt of both; it was devoid of combative
force, yet had some numerical strengths The Re-
publicans especially mocked at these " trimmers, "
as if their only platform was moral cowardice,
which, however, was an unfair statement of their
position. The party died, of necessity, upon the
day when Lincoln was elected, and its members
were then distributed between the Republicans,
the Secessionists, and the Copperheads. John
Bell, of Tennessee, the candidate for the presi-
dency, joined the Confederacy; Edward Everett,
of Massachusetts, the candidate for the vice-presi-
dency, became a Republican. The party never
had a hope of electing its men ; but its existence
increased the chance of throwing the election into
Congress; and this hope inspired exertions far
beyond what its own prospects warranted.

On May 16 the Republican Convention came
together at Chicago, where the great " Wigwam "
had been built to hold 10,000 persons. The in-
tense interest with which its action was watched
indicated the popular belief that probably it would
name the next president of the United States.
Many candidates were named, chiefly Seward, Lin-
coln, Chase, Cameron, Edward Bates of Missouri,

Brig"1 "briLH-Eitchie from a.:D^LgnJer^^*:

/ < . a- . .n-k.v.j 1:0:/ r'.t,K\: \ y.v ,;k;(;,t \

BviadTn ■:.

■'

ELECTION. 167

and William L. Dayton of New Jersey. Thurlow
Weed was Seward's lieutenant. Horace Greeley,
chiefly bent upon the defeat of Seward, would
have liked to achieve it by the success of Bates.
David Davis, aided by Judge Logan and a band
of personal friends from Illinois, was manager for
Lincoln. Primarily the contest lay between Sew-
ard and Lincoln, and only a dead -lock between
these two could give a chance to some one of the
others. But Seward's friends hoped, and Lin-
coln's friends dreaded, that the New Yorker might
win by a rush on the first ballot. George Ash-
mun of Massachusetts presided. With little
discussion a platform was adopted, long and ill-
written, overloaded with adjectives and rhetoric,
sacrificing dignity to the supreme pleasure of
abusing the Democracy, but honest in stating
Republican doctrines, and clearly displaying the
temper of an earnest, aggressive party, hot for the
fight and confident of victory. The vote of accept-
ance was greeted with such a cheering that "a
herd of buffaloes or lions could not have made a
more tremendous roaring."

The details of the brief but sharp contest for
the nomination are not altogether gratifying. The
partisans of Seward set about winning votes by
much parading in the streets with banners and
music, and by out-yelling all competitors within
the walls of the convention. For this intelligent
purpose they had engaged Tom Hyer, the prize
fighter, with a gang of roughs, to hold possession

168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

of the Wigwam, and to howl illimitably at appro-
priate moments. But they had undertaken a diffi-
cult task in trying to outdo the great West, in one
of its own cities, at a game of this kind. The
Lincoln leaders in their turn secured a couple of
stentorian yellers (one of them a Democrat), in-
structed them carefully, and then filled the Wig-
wam full actually at daybreak, while the Seward
men were marching ; so in the next yelling match
the West won magnificently. How great was the
real efficiency of these tactics in affecting the
choice of the ruler of a great nation commonly
accounted intelligent, it is difficult to say with
accuracy; but it is certain that the expert mana-
gers spared no pains about this scenic business of
"enthusiasm."

Meanwhile other work, entirely quiet, was be-
ing done elsewhere. The objection to Seward was
that he was too radical, too far in advance of the
party. The Bates following were pushing their
candidate as a moderate man, who would be ac-
ceptable to "Union men." But Bates's chance
was small, and any tendency towards a moderate
candidate was likely to carry his friends to Lin-
coln rather than to Seward ; for Lincoln was gen-
erally supposed, however erroneously,1 to be more
remote from Abolitionism than Seward was. To
counteract this, a Seward delegate telegraphed to

1 Mr. Blaine says that Lincoln " was chosen in spite of expres-
sions far more radical than those of Mr. Seward." Twenty Years
of Congress, i. 169.

rEN.. SIMON CAMERON.

1KETAHY ,

//7^^?Ht

- ' : " i ULojv-JBea n

ELECTION.

169

the Bates men at St. Louis that Lincoln was as
radical as Seward. Lincoln, at Springfield, saw
this dispatch, and at once wrote a message to David
Davis : " Lincoln agrees with Seward in his irre-
pressible-conflict idea, and in Negro Equality; but
he is opposed to Seward's Higher Law. Make no
contracts that will bind me" He underscored the
last sentence ; but when his managers saw it, they
recognized that such independence did not accord
with the situation, and so they set it aside.
The first vote was : —

Whole number ....

. 465

Necessary for choice

233

William H. Seward, of New York

. 173i

Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois

102

Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania .

. 50i

Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio .

Edward Bates, of Missouri .

. 48

William L. Dayton, of New Jersey .

John McLean, of Ohio

. 12

Jacob Collamer, of Vermont

Scattering ......

The fact was, and Lincoln's friends perfectly
understood it, that Cameron held that peculiar
kind of power which gave him no real prospect of
success, yet had a considerable saleable value.
Could they refrain from trying the market ? They
asked the owners of the 50J Cameron votes what
was their price. The owners said : The Treasury
Department. Lincoln's friends declared this
extravagant. Then they all chaffered. Finally

170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Cameron's men took a place in the Cabinet, with-
out further specification. Lamon says that an-
other smaller contract was made with the friends
of Caleb B. Smith. Then the Lincoln managers
rested in a pleasing sense of security.

The second ballot showed slight changes : —

Seward . . 184| Bates ... 35

Lincoln . . 181 Dayton . . 10

Cameron . . 2 McLean 8

Chase . . 42 1 Scattering . . 2

Upon the third ballot delivery was made of
what Mr. Davis had bought. That epidemic fore-
knowledge, which sometimes so unaccountably fore-
runs an event, told the convention that the decision
was at hand. A dead silence reigned save for the
click of the telegraphic instruments and the low
scratching of hundreds of pencils checking off the
votes as the roll was called. Those who were
keeping the tally saw that it stood : —

Seward . . 180 Dayton ... 1

Lincoln. . . 231 £ McLean . . 5

Chase . . . 24£ Scattering . . 1

Bates . . 22

Cameron was out of the race; Lincoln was
within 1£ votes of the goal. Before the count
could be announced, a delegate from Ohio trans-
ferred four votes to Lincoln. This settled the
matter; and then other delegations followed, till
Lincoln's score rose to 354. At once the "enthu-
siasm" of 10,000 men again reduced to insignifi-

«£&-

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

WASHINGTON.

X^M

170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The second ballot showed slight changes : —

Seward . . 184| Bates ... 35

Lincoln . . 181 Dayton . . 10

Cameron . . 2 McLean 8

Chase . . 42^ Scattering . . 2

Seward

. 180 Dayton .

. 1

Lincoln

2311 McLean

Chase .

24^ Scattering

. 1

Bates

Cameron was out of the race; Lincoln was
within 1J votes of the goal. Before the count
could be announced, a delegate from Ohio trans-
ferred four votes to Lincoln. This settled the
matter; and then other delegations followed, till
Lincoln's score rose to 354. At once the "enthu-
siasm" of 10,000 men again reduced to insignifi-

_^/L^i* — e^^^A^y/C^

P • 1T~

ELECTION. 171

cance a "herd of buffaloes or lions." When at
last quiet was restored, William M. Evarts, who
had led for Seward, offered the usual motion to
make the nomination of Abraham Lincoln unani-
mous. It was done. Again the "tremendous
roaring " arose. Later in the day the convention
nominated Hannibal Hamlin1 of Maine, on the
second ballot, by 367 votes, for the vice-presi-
dency. Then for many hours, till exhaustion
brought rest, Chicago was given over to the wonted
follies; cannon boomed, music resounded, and
streets and bar-rooms were filled with the howling
and drinking crowds of the intelligent promoters
of one of the great moral crusades of the human
race.

Lamon says that the committee deputed to wait
upon Lincoln at Springfield found him "sad and
dejected. The reaction from excessive joy to deep
despondency — a process peculiar to his constitu-
tion— had already set in."2 His remarks to
these gentlemen were brief and colorless. His
letter afterward was little more than a simple ac-
ceptance of the platform.

Since white men first landed on this continent,
the selection of Washington to lead the army of
the Eevolution is the only event to be compared in

1 " In strong- common-sense, in sagacity and sound judgment,
in rugged integrity of character, Mr. Hamlin has had no superior
among public men." Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 170.

2 Lamon, 453.

172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

good fortune with this nomination of Abraham
Lincoln. Yet the convention deserved no credit
for its action. It did not know the true ratio be-
tween Seward and Lincoln, which only the future
was to make plain. By all that it did know, it
ought to have given the honor to Seward, who
merited it by the high offices which he had held
with distinction and without blemish, by the lead-
ership which he had acquired in the party through
long-continued constancy and courage, by the force
and clearness with which he had maintained its
principles, by his experience and supposed natural
aptitude in the higher walks of statesmanship.
Yet actually by reason of these very qualifica-
tions 1 it was now admitted that the all-important
"October States" of Indiana and Pennsylvania
could not be carried by the Republicans, if Seward
were nominated; while Greeley, sitting in the con-
vention as a substitute for a delegate from Oregon,
cast as much of the weight of New York as he
could lift into the anti-Seward scale. In plain
fact, the convention, by its choice, paid no com-
pliment either to Lincoln or to the voters of the
party. They took him because he was "availa-
ble," and the reason that he was "available" lay
not in any popular appreciation of his merits, but
in the contrary truth: — that the mass of people
could place no intelligent estimate upon him at all,

1 MeClure adds, or rather mentions as the chief cause, Seward's
position on the public-school question in New York. Lincoln and
Men of War-Times, 28, 29.

ELECTION. 173

either for good or for ill. Outside of Illinois a few
men, who had studied his speeches, esteemed him
an able man in debate ; more had a vague notion
of him as an effective stump speaker of the West;
far the greatest number had to find out about
him.1 In a word, Mr. Lincoln gained the nom-
ination because Mr. Seward had been "too con-
spicuous," whereas he himself was so little known
that it was possible for Wendell Phillips to in-
quire indignantly : " WTho is this huckster in poli-
tics ? Who is this county court advocate ? " 2 For
these singular reasons he was the most "available "
candidate who could be offered before the citizens
of the United States !

It cannot be said that the nomination was re-
ceived with much satisfaction. "Honest old Abe,
the rail-splitter ! " might sound well in the ear of
the masses; but the Republican party was laden
with the burden of an immense responsibility, and
the men who did its thinking could not reasonably
feel certain that rail-splitting was an altogether
satisfactory training for the leader in such an era
as was now at hand. Nevertheless, nearly 3 all came
to the work of the campaign with as much zeal as if
they had surely known the full value of their candi-
date. Shutting their minds against doubts, they
made the most spirited and energetic canvass which

1 " To the country at large he was an obscure, not to say an un-
known man." Life of W. L. Garrison, "by his children, iii. 503.

2 Life of W. L. Garrison, by his children, iii. 503.

8 See remarks of McClure, Lincoln and Men of War-Times,

28, 29.

174 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

has ever taken place in the country. The organi-
zation of the "Wide- A wake" clubs was an effec-
tive success.1 None who saw will ever forget the
spectacle presented by these processions wherein
many thousands of men, singing the campaign
songs, clad in uniform capes of red or white oil-
cloth, each with a flaming torch or a colored lan-
tern, marched nightly in every city and town of
the North, in apparently endless numbers and with
military precision, making the streets a brilliant
river of variously tinted flame. Torchlight pa-
rades have become mere conventional affairs since
those days, when there was a spirit in them which
nothing has ever stirred more lately. They were
a good preparation for the more serious marching
and severer drill which were soon to come, though
the Kepublicans scoffed at all anticipations of such
a future, and sneered at the timid ones who
croaked of war and bloodshed.

Almost from the beginning it was highly prob-
able that the Eepublicans would win, and it was
substantially certain that none of their competitors
could do so. The only contrary chance was that
no election might be made by the people, and that
it might be thrown into Congress. Douglas with
his wonted spirit made a vigorous fight, travelling
to and fro, speaking constantly in the North and
a few times in the South, but defiant rather than
conciliatory in tone. He did not show one whit
the less energy because it was obvious that he

1 See N. and H„ ii. 284 n.

ELECTION. 175

waged a contest without hope. If there were any-
road to Democratic success, which it now seems
that there was not, it lay in uniting the sundered
party. An attempt was made to arrange that
whichever Democratic candidate should ultimately
display the greater strength should receive the full
support of the party. Projects for a fusion ticket
met with some success in New York. In Pennsyl-
vania like schemes were imperfectly successful.
In other Northern States they were received with
scant favor. Except some followers of Bell and
Everett, men were in no temper for compromise.
At the South fusion was not even attempted ; the
Breckenridge men would not hear of it ; the voters
in that section were controlled by leaders, and
these leaders probably had a very distinct policy,
which would be seriously interfered with by the
triumph of the Douglas ticket.

The chief anxiety of Lincoln and the Kepubli-
can leaders was lest some voters, who disagreed
with them only on less important issues, might stay
away from the polls. All the platforms, except
that of the Constitutional Union party, touched
upon other topics besides the question of slavery
in the Territories ; the tariff, native Americanism,
acquisition of Cuba, a transcontinental railway,
public lands, internal improvements, all found
mention. The Know-Nothing party still by occa-
sional twitchings showed that life had not quite
taken flight, and endeavors were made to induce

176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Lincoln to express his views. But he evaded it.1
For above all else he wished to avoid the stirring
of any dissension upon side issues or minor points ;
his hope was to see all opponents of the extension
of slavery put aside for a while all other matters,
refrain from discussing troublesome details, and
unite for the one broad end of putting slavery
where "the fathers " had left it, so that the "pub-
lic mind should rest in the belief that it was in
the way of ultimate extinction." He felt it to be
fair and right that he should receive the votes of
all anti-slavery men; and ultimately he did, with
the exception only of the thorough-going Aboli-
tionists.

It was not so very long since he had spoken of
the Abolitionist leaders as "friends; " but they did
not reciprocate the feeling, nor indeed could rea-
sonably be expected to do so, or to vote the Ke-
publican ticket. They were even less willing to
vote it with Lincoln at the head of it than if Sew-
ard had been there.2 But Eepublicanism itself
under any leader was distinctly at odds with their
views; for when they said "abolition " they meant
accurately what they said, and abolition certainly
was impossible under the Constitution. The Re-
publicans, and Lincoln personally, with equal di-
rectness acknowledged the supremacy of the Con-

1 See letter of May 17, 1859, to Dr. Canisius, Holland, 196 ; N.
and H., ii. 181.

2 Life of W. L. Garrison, by his children, iii. 502.

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ELECTION. 177

stitution. Lincoln, therefore, plainly asserted a
policy which the Abolitionists equally plainly con-
demned. In their eyes to be a party to a contract
maintaining slavery throughout a third of a conti-
nent was only a trifle less criminal than aiding to
extend it over another third. Yet it should be
said that the Abolitionists were not all of one
mind, and some voted the Eepublican ticket as
being at least a step in the right direction. Joshua
R. Giddings was a member of the Republican Con-
vention which nominated Lincoln. But Wendell
Phillips, always an extremist among extremists,
published an article entitled "Abraham Lincoln,
the Slave-hound of Illinois," whereof the key-
note was struck in this introductory sentence:
"We gibbet a Northern hound to-day, side by
side with the infamous Mason of Virginia." Mr.
Garrison, a man of far larger and sounder intel-
lectual powers than belonged to Phillips, did not
fancy this sort of diatribe, though five months
earlier he had accused the Republican party of
"slavish subserviency to the Union," and declared
it to be "still insanely engaged in glorifying the
Union, and pledging itself to frown upon all at-
tempts to dissolve it." Undeniably men who held
these views could not honestly vote for Mr. Lin-
coln.

The popular vote and the electoral vote were as
follows : 1 —

1 This table is taken from Stanwood's History of Presidential
Elections.

178

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

States.

Maine . . .
New Hampshire
Vermont . .
Massachusetts
Rhode Island .
Connecticut .
New York . .
New Jersey
Pennsylvania .
Delaware . .
Maryland . .
Virginia . . .
North Carolina
South Carolina *
Georgia . . .
Florida . . .
Alabama . .
Mississippi . .
Louisiana . .
Texas . . .'
Arkansas . .
Missouri . .

Kentucky
Ohio . .
Michigan
Indiana .
Illinois .
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Iowa .
California
Oregon .

Popular Vote.

Electoral
Vote.

a to

si.

fro §

m S3
*.f

gsl

a
3

to
C3

s
o

62,811

26,693

6,368

2,046

37,519

25,881

2,112

441

33,808

6,849

218

1,969

106,533

34,372

5,939

22,231

12,244

7,707t

—

43,792

15,522

14,641

3,291

362,646

312,510f

—

58,324

62,801f

—

268,030

16,765

178,871f

12,776

3,815

1,023

7,337

3,864

2,294

5,966

42,482

41,760

1,929

16,290

74,323

74,681

—

2,701

48,539

44,990

10
8
10

11,590

51,889

42,886

—

367

8,543

5,437

—

13,651

48,831

27,875

—

3,283

40,797

25,040

—

7,625

22,861

20,204

—

47,548

15,438f

—

—.

5,227

28,732

20,094

17,028

58,801

31,317

58,372

—

11,350

64,709

69,274

1,364

25,651'

53,143

66,058

231,610

187,232

11,405

12,194

88,480

65,057

805

405

139,033

115,509

12,295

5,306

172,161

160,215

2,404

4,913

86,110

65,021

888

161

22,069

11,920

748

70,409

55,111

1,048

1,763

39,173

38,516

34,334

6,817

5,270

3,951

5,006

183

180

1,866,452

1,375,157

847,953

590,631

* By Legislature.

t Fusion electoral tickets.

Messrs. Nicolay and Hay say that Lincoln was
the "indisputable choice of the American people,"
and by way of sustaining the statement say that,
if the "whole voting strength of the three oppos-

HENRY" A. WISE.

ELECTION. 179

ing parties had been united upon a single candi-
date, Lincoln would nevertheless have been chosen
with only a trifling diminution of his electoral
majority."1 It might be better to say that Lin-
coln was the "indisputable choice " of the electoral
college. The "American people" fell enormously
short of showing a majority in his favor. His
career as President was made infinitely more diffi-
cult as well as greatly more creditable to him by
reason of the very fact that he was not the choice
of the American people, but of less than half of
them, — and this, too, even if the Confederate
States be excluded from the computation.2

The election of Lincoln was "hailed with de-
light" by the extremists in South Carolina; for it
signified secession, and the underlying and real
desire of these people was secession, and not either
compromise or postponement.3

i N. and H., iii. 146.

2 The total popular vote was 4,680,193. Lincoln had 1,866,452.
In North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Lou-
isiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee, no vote was east for the
Lincoln ticket ; in Virginia only 1929 voted it. Adding the total
popular vote of all these States (except the 1929), we get 854,715 ;
deducting this from the total popular vote leaves a balance of
3,825,418 ; of which one half is 1,912,709 ; so that even outside of
the States of the Confederacy Lincoln did not get one half of the
popular vote. South Carolina is not included in any calculation
concerning the popular vote, because she chose electors by her
legislature.

8 Letter of Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, May 28, 1858, quoted
N. and H., ii. 302 n.

CHAPTER VII.

INTERREGNUM.

For a while now the people of the Northern
States were compelled passively to behold a spec-
tacle which they could not easily reconcile with
the theory of the supreme excellence and wisdom
of their system of government. Abraham Lincoln
was chosen President of the United States No-
vember 6, 1860 ; he was to be inaugurated March
4, 1861. During the intervening four months the
government must be conducted by a chief whose
political creed was condemned by an overwhelming
majority of the nation.1 The situation was as un-
fair for Mr. Buchanan as it was hurtful for the
people. As head of a republic, or, in the more
popular phrase, as the chief "servant of the peo-
ple," he must respect the popular will, yet he
could not now administer the public business ac-
cording to that will without being untrue to all his
own convictions, and repudiating all his trusted
counsellors. In a situation so intrinsically false
efficient government was impossible, no matter

1 Breckenridge was the legitimate representative of the admin-
istrationists, and his ticket received only 847,953 votes out of
4,680,193. Douglas and Buchanan were at open war.

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1L<3^7^€£7Z^P

INTERREGNUM. 181

what was the strength or weakness of the hand at
the helm. Therefore there was every reason for
displacing Buchanan from control of the national
affairs in the autumn, and every reason against
continuing him in that control through the winter ;
yet the law of the land ordained the latter course.
It seemed neither sensible nor even safe. During
this doleful period all descriptions of him agree :
he seemed, says Chittenden, "shaken in body and
uncertain in mind, ... an old man worn out by
worry; "while the Southerners also declared him
as "incapable of purpose as a child." To the like
purport spoke nearly all who saw him.

During the same time Lincoln's position was
equally absurd and more trying. After the lapse
of four months he was, by the brief ceremony of
an hour, to become the leader of a great nation
under an exceptionally awful responsibility; but
during those four months he could play no other
part than simply to watch, in utter powerlessness,
the swift succession of crowding events, which all
were tending to make his administration of the
government difficult, or even impossible. Through-
out all this long time, the third part of a year,
which statutes scarcely less venerable than the
Constitution itself freely presented to the disunion
leaders, they safely completed their civil and mili-
tary organization, while the Northerners, under a
ruler whom they had discredited but of whom they
could not get rid, were paralyzed for all purposes
of counter preparation.

182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

As a trifling compensation for its existence this
costly interregnum presents to later generations a
curious spectacle. A volume might be made of
the public utterances put forth in that time by men
of familiar names and more or less high repute,
and it would show many of them in most strange
and unexpected characters, so entirely out of keep-
ing with the years which they had lived before and
the years which they were to live afterward, that
the reader would gaze in hopeless bewilderment.
In the "solid " South, so soon to be a great rebel-
ling unit, he would find perhaps half of the people
opposed to disunion ; in the North he would hear
everywhere words of compromise and concession,
while coercion would be mentioned only to be de-
nounced. If these four months were useful in
bringing the men of the North to the fighting
point, on the other hand they gave an indispensa-
ble opportunity for proselyting, by whirl and ex-
citement, great numbers at the South. Even in
the autumn of 1860 and in the Gulf States seces-
sion was still so much the scheme of leaders that
there was no popular preponderance in favor of
disunion doctrines. In evidence of this are the
responses of governors to a circular letter of Gov-
ernor Gist, of South Carolina, addressed to them
October 5, 1860, and seeking information as to the
feeling among the people. From North Carolina,
Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama came replies that
secession was not likely to be favorably received.
Mississippi was non-committal. Louisiana, Geor-

GO
g «

©fe

INTERREGNUM. 183

gia and Alabama desired a convention of the dis-
contented States, and might be influenced by its
action. North Carolina, Louisiana, and Alabama
would oppose forcible coercion of a seceding State.
Florida alone was rhetorically belligerent. These
reports were discouraging in the ears of the ex-
tremist governor; but against them he could set
the fact that the disunionists had the advantage
of being the aggressive, propagandist body, homo-
geneous, and pursuing an accurate policy in entire
concert. They were willing to take any amount
of pains to manipulate and control the election
of delegates and the formal action of conven-
tions, and in all cases except that of Texas the
question was conclusively passed upon by conven-
tions. By every means they "fired the Southern
heart," which was notoriously combustible; they
stirred up a great tumult of sentiment; they made
thunderous speeches ; they kept distinguished emis-
saries moving to and fro; they celebrated each
success with an uproar of cannonading, with bon-
fires, illuminations and processions; they appealed
to those chivalrous virtues supposed to be pecu-
liar to Southerners; they preached devotion to
the State, love of the state flag, generous loyalty
to sister slave-communities; sometimes they used
insult, abuse and intimidation; occasionally they
argued seductively. Thus Mr. Cobb's assertion,
that "we can make better terms out of the Union
than in it," was, in the opinion of Alexander H.
Stephens, the chief influence which carried Geor-

184 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

gia out of the Union. In the main, however, it
was the principle of state sovereignty and state
patriotism which proved the one entirely trust-
worthy influence to bring over the reluctant. " I
abhor disunion, but I go with my State " was the
common saying; and the States were under skilful
and resolute leadership. So though the popular
discontent was far short of the revolutionary point,
yet individuals, one after another, yielded to that
sympathetic, emotional instinct which tempts each
man to fall in with the big procession. In this
way it was that during the Buchanan interregnum
the people of the Gulf States became genuinely
fused in rebellion.

It is not correct to say that the election of Lin-
coln was the cause of the Rebellion ; it was rather
the signal. To the Southern leaders, it was the
striking of the appointed hour. His defeat would
have meant only postponement. South Carolina
led the way. On December 17, 1860, her conven-
tion came together, the Palmetto flag waving over
its chamber of conference, and on December 20 it
issued its "Ordinance."1 This declared that the
Ordinance of May 23, 1788, ratifying the Consti-
tution, is "hereby repealed," and the "Union now
subsisting between South Carolina and other
States, under the name of the United States of
America, is hereby dissolved." A Declaration of
Causes said that South Carolina had "resumed

1 See remarks of Mr. Blaine upon use of this word. Twenty
Years of Congress, i. 219.

INTERREGNUM. 185

her position among the nations of the world as a
separate and independent State." The language
used was appropriate for the revocation of a power
of attorney. The people hailed this action with
noisy joy, unaccompanied by any regret or solem-
nity at the severance of the old relationship. The
newspapers at once began to publish "Foreign
News " from the other States. The new governor,
Pickens, a fiery Secessionist, and described as one
"born insensible to fear," — presumably the con-
dition of most persons at that early period of ex-
istence, — had already suggested to Mr. Buchanan
the impropriety of reinforcing the national gar-
risons in the forts in Charleston harbor. He now
accredited to the President three commissioners to
treat with him for the delivery of the "forts, maga-
zines, light-houses, and other real estate, with their
appurtenances, in the limits of South Carolina;
and also for an apportionment of the public debt,
and for a division of all other property held by the
government of the United States as agent of the
Confederate States of which South Carolina was
recently a member." This position, as of the dis-
solution of a copartnership, or the revocation of an
agency, and an accounting of debts and assets, was
at least simple ; and by way of expediting it an ap-
praisal of the "real estate" and "appurtenances"
within the state limits had been made by the state
government. Meanwhile there was in the harbor
of Charleston a sort of armed truce, which might
at any moment break into war. Major Anderson,

186 ABE AH AM LINCOLN.

in Fort Moultrie, and the state commander in the
city watched each other like two suspicious ani-
mals, neither sure when the other will spring. In
short, in all the overt acts, the demeanor and the
language of this excitable State, there was such
insolence, besides hostility, that her emissaries
must have been surprised at the urbane courtesy
with which they were received, even by a presi-
dent of Mr. Buchanan's views.

After the secession of South Carolina the other
Gulf States hesitated briefly. Mississippi fol-
lowed first; her convention assembled January 7,
1861, and on January 9 passed the Ordinance, 84
yeas to 15 nays, subsequently making the vote
unanimous. The Florida convention met January
3, and on January 10 decreed the State to be "a
sovereign and independent nation," 62 yeas to 7
nays. The Alabama convention passed its Ordi-
nance on January 11 by 61 yeas to 39 nays ; the
president announced that the idea of reconstruc-
tion must be forever "dismissed." Yet the north-
ern part of the State appeared to be substantially
anti-secession. In Georgia the secessionists
doubted whether they could control a convention,
yet felt obliged to call one. Toombs, Cobb, and
Iverson labored with tireless zeal throughout the
State ; but in spite of all their proselyting, Union-
ist feeling ran high and debate was hot. The
members from the southern part of the State ven-
tured to menace and dragoon those from the north-
ern part, who were largely Unionists. The latter

■*

INTERREGNUM. 187

retorted angrily; a schism and personal collisions
were narrowly avoided. Alexander H. Stephens
spoke for the Union with a warmth and logic not
surpassed by anything that was said at the North.
He and Herschel V. Johnson both voted against
secession; yet, on January 18, when the vote was
taken, it showed 208 yeas against 89 nays. On
January 26 Louisiana followed, the vote of the
convention being 113 yeas to 17 nays; but it re-
fused to submit the ordinance to the people for
ratification. The action of Texas, the only other
State which seceded prior to the inauguration of
Lincoln, was delayed until February 1. There
Governor Houston was opposing secession with
such vigor as remained to a broken old man,
whereby he provoked Senator Iverson to utter the
threat of assassination: "Some Texan Brutus may
arise to rid his country of this old hoary -headed
traitor." But in the convention, when it came to
voting, the yeas were 166, the nays only 7.

By the light that was in him Mr. Buchanan was
a Unionist, but it was a sadly false and flickering
light, and beneath its feeble illumination his steps
staggered wofully. For two months he diverged
little from the path which the secessionist leaders
would have marked out for him, had they controlled
his movements. At the time of the election his
cabinet was : —

Lewis Cass, of Michigan, Secretary of State.
Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury.
John B. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War.

188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Isaac Toucey, of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy.
Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior.
Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee, Postmaster-General.
Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General.

Of these men Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson were
extreme Secessionists. Many felt that Cobb should
have been made President of the Southern Confed-
eracy instead of Davis. In December Thompson
went as commissioner from Mississippi to North
Carolina to persuade that State to secede, and did
not resign his place in the Cabinet because, as he
said, Mr. Buchanan approved his mission.

Betwixt his own predilections and the influence
of these advisers Mr. Buchanan composed for the
Thirty-sixth Congress a Message which carried
consternation among all Unionists. It was of little
consequence that he declared the present situation
to be the "natural effect" of the "long-continued
and intemperate interference" of the Northern
people with slavery. But it was of the most seri-
ous consequence that while he condemned secession
as unconstitutional, he also declared himself power-
less to prevent it. His duty "to take care that
the laws be faithfully executed" he knew no other
way to perform except by aiding Federal officers
in the performance of their duties. But where, as
in South Carolina, the Federal officers had all re-
signed, so that none remained to be aided, what
was he to do ? This was practically to take the
position that half a dozen men, by resigning their
offices, could make the preservation of the Union

188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Betwixt his own predilections and the influence
of these advisers Mr. Buchanan composed for the
Thirty-sixth Congress a Message which carried
consternation among all Unionists. It was of little
consequence that he declared the present situation
to be the "natural effect" of the "long-continued
and intemperate interference" of the Northern
people with slavery. But it was of the most seri-
ous consequence that while he condemned secession
as unconstitutional, he also declared himself power-
less to prevent it. His duty "to take care that
the laws be faithfully executed " he knew no other
way to perform except by aiding Federal officers
in the performance of their duties. But where, as
in South Carolina, the Federal officers had all re-
signed, so that none remained to be aided, what
was he to do ? This was practically to take the
position that half a dozen men, by resigning their
offices, could make the preservation of the Union

INTERREGNUM. 189

by its chief executive impossible ! 1 Besides this,
Mr. Buchanan said that he had "no authority to
decide what should be the relations between the
Federal government and South Carolina." He
afterward said that he desired to avoid a collision
of arms "between this and any other government."
He did not seem to reflect that he had no right to
recognize a State of the Union as being an "other
government," in the sense in which he used the
phrase, and that, by his very abstention from the
measures necessary for maintaining unchanged that
relationship which had hitherto existed, he became
a party to the establishment of a new relation-
ship, and that, too, of a character which he himself
alleged to be unconstitutional. In truth, his chief
purpose was to rid himself of any responsibility
and to lay it all upon Congress. Yet he was will-
ing to advise Congress as to its powers and duties
in the business which he shirked in favor of that
body, saying that the power to coerce a seceding
State had not been delegated to it, and adding the
warning that "the Union can never be cemented
by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war." So
the nation learned that its ruler was of opinion that
to resist the destruction of its nationality was both
unlawful and inexpedient.

If the conclusions of the Message aroused alarm

1 But it should be said that Attorney-General Black supported
these views in a very elaborate opinion, which he had furnished to
the President, and which was transmitted to Congress at the same
time with the Message.

190 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

and indignation, its logic excited ridicule. Sen-
ator Hale gave a not unfair synopsis : The Presi-
dent, lie said, declares: 1. That South Carolina
has just cause for seceding. 2. That she has no
right to secede. 3. That we have no right to
prevent her from seceding; and that the power of
the government is "a power to do nothing at all."
Another wit said that Buchanan was willing to
give up a part of the Constitution, and, if neces-
sary, the whole, in order to preserve the remainder/
But while this message of Mr. Buchanan has
been bitterly denounced, and with entire justice,
from the hour of its transmission to the present
day, yet a palliating consideration ought to be
noted: he had little reason to believe that, if he
asserted the right and duty of forcible coercion, he
would find at his back the indispensable force,
moral and physical, of the people. Demoraliza-
tion at the North was widespread. After the lapse
of a few months this condition passed, and then
those who had been beneath its influence desired
to forget the humiliating fact, and hoped that
others might either forget or never know the
measure of their weakness. In order that they
might save their good names, it was natural that
they should seek to suppress all evidence which had
not already found its way upon the public record ;
but enough remains to show how grievously for a
while the knees were weakened under many who en-
joy — and rightfully, by reason of the rest of their
lives — the reputation of stalwart patriots. For

INTERREGNUM. 191

example, late in October, General Scott suggested
to the President a division of the country into four
separate confederacies, roughly outlining their
boundaries. Scott was a dull man, but he was the
head of the army and enjoyed a certain prestige, so
that it was impossible to say that his notions, how-
ever foolish in themselves, were of no consequence.
But if the blunders of General Scott could not
fatally wound the Union cause, the blunders of
Horace Greeley might conceivably do so. If there
had been in the Northern States any newspaper —
apart from Mr. Garrison's "Liberator" — which
was thoroughly committed to the anti - slavery
cause, it was the New York "Tribune," under
the guidance of that distinguished editor. Repub-
licans everywhere throughout the land had been
educated by his teachings and had become accus-
tomed to take a large part of their knowledge and
their opinions in matters political from his writ-
ings. It was a misfortune for Abraham Lincoln,
which cannot be over -rated, that from the mo-
ment of his nomination to the day of his death
the "Tribune" was largely engaged in criticising
his measures and in condemning his policy.

No sooner did all that, which Mr. Greeley had
been striving during many years to bring about,
seem to be on the point of consummation, than
the demoralized and panic-stricken reformer be-
came desirous to undo his own achievements, and
to use for the purpose of effecting a sudden retro-
gression all the influence which he had gained

192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

by bold leadership. November 9, 1860, it was
appalling to read in the editorial columns of his
sheet, that "if the Cotton States shall decide that
they can do better out of the Union than in it, we
insist on letting them go in peace;" that, while
the "Tribune" denied the right of nullification,
yet it would admit that "to withdraw from the
Union is quite another matter; " that "whenever a
considerable section of our Union shall deliber-
ately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive
measures designed to keep it in."1 At the end
of another month the "Tribune's" famous editor
was still in the same frame of mind, declaring
himself "averse to the employment of military
force to fasten one section of our Confederacy to
the other," and saying that, "if eight States,
having five millions of people, choose to separate
from us, they cannot be permanently withheld
from so doing by Federal cannon." On Decem-
ber 17 he even said that the South had as good
a right to secede from the Union as the colonies
had to secede from Great Britain, and that he
"would not stand up for coercion, for subjuga-
tion," because he did "not think it would be
just." On February 23, 1861, he said that if
the Cotton States, or the Gulf States, "choose
to form an independent nation, they have a clear

1 Greeley afterwards truly said that his journal had plenty of
company in these sentiments, even among the Republican sheets.
Amer. Conflict, i. 359. Reference is made in the text to the utter-
ances of the Tribune more because it was so prominent and influ-
ential than because it was very peculiar in its position.

INTERREGNUM. 193

moral right to do so," and if the "great body of
the Southern people " become alienated from the
Union and wish to "escape from it, we will do our
best to forward their views." A volume could
be filled with the like writing of his prolific pen
at this time, and every sentence of such purport
was the casting of a new stone to create an almost
impassable obstruction in the path along which
the new President must soon endeavor to move.
Thurlow Weed, editor of the Albany "Evening
Journal," and the confidential adviser of Seward,
wrote in favor of concessions; he declared that
"a victorious party can afford to be tolerant;"
and he advocated a convention to revise the Con-
stitution, on the ground that, "after more than
seventy years of wear and tear, of collision and
abrasion, it should be no cause of wonder that
the machinery of government is found weakened,
or out of repair, or even defective." Frequently
he uttered the wish, vague and of fine sound,
but enervating, that the Republicans might "meet
secession as patriots and not as partisans." On
November 9 the Democratic New York "Herald,"
discussing the election of Lincoln, said: "For far
less than this our fathers seceded from Great
Britain;" it also declared coercion to be "out of
the question," and laid down the principle that
each State possesses "the right to break the tie of
the Confederacy, as a nation might break a treaty,
and to repel coercion as a nation might repel inva-
sion."

194 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Local elections in New York and Massachusetts
"showed a striking and general reduction of Re-
publican strength." In December the mayor of
Philadelphia, though that city had polled a heavy
Eepublican majority, told a mass meeting in In-
dependence Square that denunciations of slavery
were inconsistent with national brotherhood and
"must be frowned down by a just and law-abid-
ing people." The Bell and Everett men, gene-
rally, desired peace at any price. The business
men of the North, alarmed at the prospect of
disorder, became loudly solicitous for concession,
compromise, even surrender.1 In Democratic
meetings a threatening tone was adopted. One
proposal was to reconstruct the Union, leaving
out the New England States. So late even as
January 21, 1861, before an immense and note-
worthy gathering in New York, an orator ventured
to say: "If a revolution of force is to begin, it
shall be inaugurated at home;" and the words
were cheered. The distinguished Chancellor
Walworth said that it would be "as brutal to send
men to butcher our own brothers of the Southern
States as it would be to massacre them in the
Northern States." When DeWitt Clinton's son,
George, spoke of secession as "rebellion," the
multitude hailed the word with cries of dissent.
Even at Faneuil Hall, in Boston, "a very large

1 Wilson, Rise and Fall of Slave Power, iii. 63-69 ; N. and H. ,
iii. 255. See account of " the Pine Street meeting-," New York, in
Dix's Memoirs of Dix, i. 347.

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INTERREGNUM. 195

and respectable meeting" was emphatically in
favor of compromise. It was impossible to mea-
sure accurately the extent and force of all this
demoralization; but the symptoms were that vast
numbers were infected with such sentiments, and
that they would have been worse than useless as
backers of a vigorous policy on the part of the
government.

With the North wavering and ready to retreat,
and the South aggressive and confident, it was
exacting to expect Mr. Buchanan to stand up for
a fight. Why should he, with his old-time Demo-
cratic principles, now by a firm, defiant attitude
precipitate a crisis, possibly a civil war, when
Horace Greeley and Wendell Phillips were con-
spicuously running away from the consequences
of their own teachings, and were loudly crying
"peace! peace!" after they themselves had long
been doing all in their power to bring the North
up to the fighting point? When these leaders
faced to the rear, it was hard to say who could be
counted upon to fill the front rank. In truth, it
was a situation which might have discouraged a
more combative patriot than Buchanan. Mean-
while, while the Northerners talked chiefly of
yielding, the hot and florid rhetoric of the South-
ern orators, often laden with contemptuous insult,
smote with disturbing menace upon the ears even
of the most courageous Unionists. It was said at
the South and feared at the North that secession
had a "Spartan band in every Northern State,"

196 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

and that blood would flow in Northern cities at
least as soon and as freely as on the Southern
plantations, if forcible coercion should be at-
tempted. Was it possible to be sure that this was
all rodomontade? To many good citizens there
seemed some reason to think that the best hope for
avoiding the fulfilment at the North of these san-
guinary threats might lie in the probability that
the anti-slavery agitators would not stand up to
encounter a genuinely mortal peril.

When the Star of the West retired, a little
ignominiously, from her task of reinforcing Fort
Sumter, Senator Wigf all jeered insolently: "Your
flag has been insulted," he said; "redress it if you
dare ! You have submitted to it for two months,
and you will submit forever. . . . We have dis-
solved the Union ; mend it if you can ; cement it
with blood ; try the experiment ! " Mr. Chestnut
of South Carolina wished to "unfurl the Palmetto
flag, fling it to the breeze . . . and ring the clarion
notes of defiance in the ears of an insolent foe."
Such bombastic but confident language, of which a
great quantity was uttered in this winter of 1860-
61, may exasperate or intimidate according to the
present temper of the opponent whose ear it as-
saults ; for a while the North was more in condi-
tion to be awestruck than to be angered. Her
spokesmen failed to answer back, and left her to
listen not without anxiety to fierce predictions that
Southern flags would soon be floating over the
dome of the Capitol and even over Faneuil Hall,

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Gen. DANIEL E. SICKLES.

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INTERREGNUM. 197

if she should be so imprudent as to test Southern
valor and Southern resources.

Matters looked even worse for the Union cause
in Congress than in the country. Occasionally
some irritated Northern Republican shot out words
of spirit; but the prevalent desire was for concilia-
tion, compromise, and concession, while some actu-
ally adopted secession doctrines. For example,
Daniel E. Sickles, in the House, threatened that
the secession of the Southern States should be fol-
lowed by that of New York city ; and in fact the
scheme had been recommended by the Democratic
mayor, Fernando Wood, in a message to the Com-
mon Council of the city on January 6 ; and Gen-
eral Dix conceived it to be a possibility. In the
Senate Simon Cameron declared himself desirous
to preserve the Union "by any sacrifice of feeling,
and I may say of principle." A sacrifice of politi-
cal principle by Cameron was not, perhaps, a seri-
ous matter; but he intended the phrase to be
emphatic, and he was a leading Republican poli-
tician, had been a candidate for the presidential
nomination, and was dictator in Pennsylvania.
Even Seward, in the better days of the middle of
January, felt that he could "afford to meet preju-
dice with conciliation, exaction with concession
which surrenders no principle, and violence with
the right hand of peace;" and he was "willing,
after the excitement of rebellion and secession
should have passed away, to call a convention for
amending the Constitution."

198 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

This Message of Buchanan marked the lowest
point to which the temperature of his patriotism
fell. Soon afterward, stimulated by heat applied
from outside, it began to rise. The first intima-
tion which impressed upon his anxious mind that
he was being too acquiescent towards the South
came from General Cass. That steadfast Demo-
crat, of the old Jacksonian school, like many of
his party at the North, was fully as good a patriot
and Union man as most of the Republicans were
approving themselves to be during these winter
months of vacillation, alarm and compromise. In
November he was strenuously in favor of forcibly
coercing a seceding State, but later assented to the
tenor of Mr. Buchanan's Message. The frame of
mind which induced this assent, however, was tran-
sitory; for immediately he began to insist upon
the reinforcement of the garrisons of the Southern
forts, and on December 13 he resigned, because
the President refused to accede to his views. A
few days earlier Howell Cobb had had the grace to
resign from the Treasury, which he left entirely
empty. In the reorganization Philip F. Thomas
of Maryland, a Secessionist also, succeeded Cobb ;
Judge Black was moved into the State Depart-
ment, and Edwin M. Stanton, of Pennsylvania,
followed Black as Attorney- General. Mr. Floyd,
than whom no Secessionist has left a name in worse
odor at the North, had at first advised against any
"rash movement" in the way of secession, on the
ground that Mr. Lincoln's administration would

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INTERREGNUM. 199

"fail, and be regarded as impotent for good or
evil, within four months after his inauguration."
None the less he had long been using his official
position in the War Department to send arms into
the Southern States and to make all possible ar-
rangements for putting them in an advantageous
position for hostilities. Fortunately about this
time the famous defalcation in the Indian Depart-
ment, in which he was guiltily involved, destroyed
his credit with the President, and at the same
time he quarrelled with his associates concerning
Anderson's removal to Fort Sumter. On Decem-
ber 29 he resigned, and the duties of his place
were laid for a while upon Judge Holt, the Post-
master-General.

On Sunday morning, December 30, there was
what has been properly called a Cabinet crisis.
The South Carolina commissioners, just arrived
in Washington, were demanding recognition, and
to treat with the government as if they were re-
presentatives of a foreign power. The President
declined to receive them in a diplomatic character,
but offered to act as go-between betwixt them and
Congress. The President's advisers, however,
were in a far less amiable frame of mind, for their
blood had been stirred wholesomely by the seces-
sion of South Carolina and the presence of these
emissaries with their insolent demands. Mr.
Black, now at the head of the State Department,
had gone through much the same phases of feeling
as General Cass. In November he had been "em-

200 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

phatic in his advocacy of coercion," but afterward
had approved the President's message and even
declared forcible coercion to be " ipso facto an ex-
pulsion" of the State from the Union; since then
he had drifted back and made fast at his earlier
moorings. On this important Sunday morning
Mr. Buchanan learned with dismay that either his
reply to the South Carolinians must be substan-
tially modified, or Mr. Black and Mr. Stanton
would retire from the Cabinet. Under this pres-
sure he yielded. Mr. Black drafted a new reply to
the commissioners, Mr. Stanton copied it, Holt
concurred in it, and, in substance, Mr. Buchanan
accepted it. This affair constituted, as Messrs.
Nicolay and Hay well say, "the President's virtual
abdication," and thereafterward began the "Cab-
inet regime." Upon the commissioners this chill
gust from the North struck so disagreeably that, on
January 2, they hastened home to their "indepen-
dent nation." From this time forth the South
covered Mr. Buchanan with contumely and abuse ;
Mr. Benjamin called him "a senile executive, un-
der the sinister influence of insane counsels; " and
the poor old man, really wishing to do right, but
stripped of friends and of his familiar advisers,
and confounded by the views of new counsellors,
presented a spectacle for pity.

On January 8 Mr. Thompson, Secretary of the
Interior, resigned, and the vacancy was left un-
filled. A more important change took place on
the following day, when Mr. Thomas left the

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INTERREGNUM. 201

Treasury Department, and the New York bankers,
whose aid was essential, forced the President,
sorely against his will, to give the place to General
John A. Dix. This proved an excellent appoint-
ment. General Dix was an old Democrat, but of
the high-spirited type ; he could have tolerated se-
cession by peaceable agreement, but rose in anger
at menaces against the flag and the Union. He
conducted his department with entire success, and
also rendered to the country perhaps the greatest
service that was done by any man during that win-
ter. On January 29 he sent the telegram which
closed with the famous words: "If any one at-
tempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him
on the spot." x This rung out as the first cheer-
ing, stimulating indication of a fighting temper at
the North. It was a tonic which came at a time
of sore need, and for too long a while it remained
the solitary dose !

So much of the President's Message as con-
cerned the condition of the country was referred
in the House to a Committee of Thirty-three,
composed by appointing one member from each
State. Other resolutions and motions upon the
same subject, to the number of twenty -five, were
also sent to this Committee. It had many sessions
from December 11 to January 14, but never made
an approach to evolving anything distantly ap-
proaching agreement. When, on January 14, the

1 For an account of this by General Dix himself, see Memoirs of
John A. Dix, by Morgan Dix, i. 370-373.

202 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Keport came, it was an absurd fiasco ; it contained
six propositions, of which each had the assent of a
majority of a quorum ; but seven minority reports,
bearing together the signatures of fourteen mem-
bers, were also submitted; and the members of the
seceding States refused to act. The only actual
fruit was a proposed amendment to the Constitu-
tion: "That no amendment shall be made to the
Constitution which will authorize or give to Con-
gress the power to abolish or interfere, within any
State, with the domestic institutions thereof, in-
cluding that of persons held to labor or service by
the laws of said State." In the expiring hours of
the Thirty-sixth Congress this was passed by the
House, and then by the Senate, and was signed by
the President. Lincoln, in his inaugural address,
said of it: "Holding such a provision to be now
constitutional law, I have no objection to its being
made express and irrevocable." This view of it
was correct; it had no real significance, and the
ill-written sentence never disfigured the Constitu-
tion; it simply sank out of sight, forgotten by
every one.

Collaterally with the sitting of this House Com-
mittee, a Committee of Thirteen was appointed in
the Senate. To these gentlemen also "a string of
Union-saving devices" was presented, but on the
last day of the year they reported that they had
"not been able to agree upon any general plan of
adjustment."

The earnest effort of the venerable Crittenden

INTERREGNUM. 203

to effect a compromise aroused a faint hope. But
he offered little else than an extension westward
of the Missouri Compromise line; and he never
really had the slightest chance of effecting that
consummation, which in fact could not be effected.
His plan was finally defeated on the last evening
of the session.

Collaterally with these congressional debates
there were also proceeding in Washington the ses-
sions of the Peace Congress, another futile effort
to concoct a cure for an incurable condition. It
met on February 4, 1861, but only twenty-one
States out of thirty-four were represented. The
seven States which had seceded said that they
could not come, being "Foreign Nations. " Six
other States * held aloof. Those Northern States
which sent delegates selected "their most conserv-
ative and compromising men," and so great a
tendency towards concession was shown that
Unionists soon condemned the scheme as merely a
deceitful cover devised by the Southerners behind
which they could the more securely carry on their
processes of secession. These gentlemen talked a
great deal and finally presented a report or plan
to Congress five days before the end of the session ;
the House refused to receive it, the Senate re-
jected it by 7 ayes to 28 nays. The only useful-
ness of the gathering was as evidence of the unwill-
ingness of the South to compromise. In fact the

1 Arkansas, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, and Wis-

204 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Southern leaders were entirely frank and outspoken
in acknowledging their position; they had said,
from the beginning, that they did not wish the
Committee of Thirty -three to accomplish anything ;
and they had endeavored to dissuade Southerners
from accepting positions upon it. Hawkins of
Florida said that "the time of compromise had
passed forever." South Carolina refused to share
in the Peace Congress, because she did "not deem
it advisable to initiate negotiations when she had
no desire or intention to promote the object in
view." Governor Peters, of Mississippi, in poetic
language, suggested another difficulty: "When
sparks cease to fly upwards," he said, "Comanches
respect treaties, and wolves kill sheep no more,
the oath of a Black Eepublican might be of some
value as a protection to slave property." Jeffer-
son Davis contemptuously stigmatized all the
schemes of compromise as "quack nostrums," and
he sneered justly enough at those who spun fine
arguments of legal texture, and consumed time
"discussing abstract questions, reading patchwork
from the opinions of men now mingled with the
dust."

It is not known by what logic gentlemen who
held these views defended their conduct in re-
taining their positions in the government of the
nation for the purpose of destroying it. Senator
Yulee, of Florida, shamelessly gave his motive for
staying in the Senate : " It is thought we can keep
the hands of Mr. Buchanan tied and disable the

INTERREGNUM. 205

Republicans from effecting any legislation which
will strengthen the hands of the incoming admin-
istration." Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, speaking
and voting at his desk in the Senate, declared him-
self "as good a rebel and as good a traitor as ever
descended from Revolutionary loins," and said
that the Union was already dissolved, — by which
assertion he made his position in the Senate abso-
lutely indefensible. The South Carolina senators
resigned before their State ordained itself a "for-
eign nation," and incurred censure for being so
"precipitate." In a word, the general desire was
to remain in office, hampering and obstructing the
government, until March 4, 1861, and at a caucus
of Disunionists it was agreed to do so. But the
pace became too rapid, and resignations followed
pretty close upon the formal acts of secession.

On the same day on which the Peace Congress
opened its sessions in Washington, there came
together at Montgomery, in Alabama, delegates
from six States for the purpose of forming a South-
ern Confederacy. On the third day thereafter a
plan for a provisional government, substantially
identical with the Constitution of the United
States, was adopted. On February 9 the oath of
allegiance was taken, and Jefferson Davis and
Alexander H. Stephens were elected respectively
President and Vice-President. On February 13
the military and naval committees were directed
to report plans for organizing an army and navy.
Mr. Davis promptly journeyed to Montgomery,

206 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

making on the way many speeches, in which he
told his hearers that no plan for a reconstruction
of the old Union would be entertained ; and prom-
ised that those who should interfere with the new
nation would have to "smell Southern powder and
to feel Southern steel." On February 18 he was
inaugurated, and in his address again referred to
the "arbitrament of the sword." Immediately
afterward he announced his Cabinet as follows : —
Robert Toombs, of Georgia, Secretary of State.
C G. Memminger, of South Carolina, Secretary of the

Treasury.
L. P. Walker, of Alabama, Secretary of War.
S. R. Mallory, of Florida, Secretary of the Navy.
J. H. Reagan, of Texas, Postmaster-General.
Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, Attorney-General.

On March 11 the permanent Constitution was
adopted.1 Thus the machine of the new govern-
ment was set in working order. Mr. Greeley gives
some interesting figures showing the comparative
numerical strength of the sections of the country
at this time : 2 —

The free population of the seven States which

had seceded, was 2,656,948

The free population of the eight slave States 8

which had not seceded, was . . . 5,633,005

Total 8,289,953

1 It differed from that of the United States very little, save in
containing a distinct recognition of slavery ; and in being made by
the States instead of by the people.

2 American Conflict, i. 351.

3 This includes Delaware, 110,420, and Maryland, 599,846.

206 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

making on the way many speeches, in which he
told his hearers that no plan for a reconstrnction
of the old Union would be entertained ; and prom-
ised that those who should interfere with the new
nation would have to "smell Southern powder and
to feel Southern steel." On February 18 he was
inaugurated, and in his address again referred to
the "arbitrament of the sword." Immediately
afterward he announced his Cabinet as follows : —
Robert Toombs, of Georgia, Secretary of State.
C G. Memminger, of South Carolina, Secretary of the

Treasury.
L. P. Walker, of Alabama, Secretary of War.
S. It. Mallory, of Florida, Secretary of the Navy.
J. H. Reagan, of Texas, Postmaster-General.
Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, Attorney-General.

The free population of the seven States which

had seceded, was ..... 2,656,948

The free population of the eight slave States 8

which had not seceded, was . . . 5,633,005

Total 8,289,953

1 It differed from that of the United States very little, save in
containing a distinct recognition of slavery ; and in being made by
the States instead of by the people.

2 American Conflict, i. 351.

3 This includes Delaware, 110,420, and Maryland, 599,846.

INTERREGNUM. 207

The slaves in the States of the first list were, 2,312,046

The slaves in the States of the second list were 1,638,297

Total of slaves 3,950,343

The population of the whole Union by the

census of 1860, was ... 31,443,321

The disproportion would have discouraged the
fathers of the new nation, if they had anticipated
that the North would be resolute in using its over-
whelming resources. But how could they believe
that this would be the case when they read the
New York "Tribune" and the reports of Mr.
Phillips's harangues?

On February 13 the electoral vote was to be
counted in Congress. Rumors were abroad that
the Secessionists intended to interfere with this by
tumults and violence; but the evidence is insuffi-
cient to prove that any such scheme was definitely
matured ; it was talked of, but ultimately it seems
to have been laid aside with a view to action at a
later date. Naturally enough, however, the coun-
try was disquieted. In the emergency the action
of General Scott was watched with deep anxiety.
A Southerner by birth and by social sympathies,
he had been expected by the Secessionists to join
their movement. But the old soldier — though
broken by age and infirmities, and though he had
proposed the folly of voluntarily quartering the
country, like the corpse of a traitor — had his pa-
triotism and his temper at once aroused when vio-
lence was threatened. On and after October 29

208 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

he had repeatedly advised reinforcement of the
Southern garrisons; though it must be admitted,
in Buchanan's behalf, that the General made no
suggestion as to how or where the troops could be
obtained for this purpose. In the same spirit he
now said, with stern resolution, that there should
be ample military preparations to ensure both the
count and the inauguration; and he told some of
the Southerners that he would blow traitors to
pieces at the cannon's mouth without hesitation.
Disturbed at his vehemence, they denounced him
bitterly, and sent him frequent notices of assas-
sination. Floyd distributed orders concerning
troops and munitions directly from the War De-
partment, and carefully concealed them from the
General who was the head of the army. But
secrecy and intimidation were in vain. The aged
warrior was fiercely in earnest; if there was go-
ing to be any outbreak in Washington he was
going to put it down with bullets and bayonets,
and he gathered his soldiers and instructed his
officers accordingly. But happily the preparation
of these things was sufficient to render the use of
them unnecessary. When the day came Vice-
President Breckenridge performed his duty, how-
ever unwelcome, without flinching. He presided
over the joint session and conducted the count
with the air of a man determined to enforce law
and order, and at the close declared the election
of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin.

Still only the smaller crisis had been passed.

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INTERREGNUM. 209

Much more alarming stories now flew from mouth
to mouth, — of plots to seize the capital and to
prevent the inauguration, even to assassinate Lin-
coln on his journey to Washington. How much
foundation there was for these is not accurately-
known. That the idea of capturing Washing-
ton had fascinated the Southern fancy is certain.
"I see no reason," said Senator Iverson, "why
Washington City should not be continued the
capital of the Southern Confederacy." The Eich-
mond "Examiner" railed grossly: "That filthy
cage of unclean birds must and will assuredly
be purified by fire. . . . Our people can take it,
— they will take it. . . . Scott, the arch-traitor,
and Lincoln, the beast, combined, cannot prevent
it. The 'Illinois Ape ' must retrace his journey
more rapidly than he came." The abundant talk
of this sort created uneasiness; and Judge Holt
said that there was cause for alarm. But a com-
mittee of Congress reported that, though it was
difficult to speak positively, yet they found no
evidence sufficient to prove "the existence of a
secret organization." Alexander H. Stephens has
denied that there was any intention to attack the
city, and probably the notion of seizure did not
pass beyond the stage of talk.

But the alleged plot to assassinate Mr. Lincoln
was more definite. He had been spending the
winter quietly in Springfield, where he had been
overrun by visitors, who wished to look at him,
to advise him, and to secure promises of office;

210 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

fortunately the tedious procession had lost part of
its oft'ensiveness by touching his sense of humor.
Anxious people made well-meaning but useless
efforts to induce him to say something for effect
upon the popular mind; but he resolutely and
wisely maintained silence. His position and opin-
ions, he said, had already been declared in his
speeches with all the clearness he could give to
them, and the people had appeared to understand
and approve them. He could not improve and did
not desire to change these utterances. Occasion-
ally he privately expressed his dislike to the con-
ceding and compromising temper which threatened
to undo, for an indefinite future, all which the
long and weary struggle of anti-slavery men had
accomplished. In this line he wrote a letter of
protest to Greeley, which inspired that gentleman
to a singular expression of sympathy; let the
Union go to pieces, exclaimed the emotional editor,
let presidents be assassinated, let the Eepublican
party suffer crushing defeat, but let there not be
"another nasty compromise. " To Mr. Kellogg, the
Illinoisian on the House Committee of Thirty -three,
Lincoln wrote: "Entertain no proposition for a
compromise in regard to the extension of slavery.
The instant you do, they have us under again ; all
our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be done
over again." He repeated almost the same words
to E. B. Washburne, a member of the House.
Duff Green tried hard to get something out of
him for the comfort of Mr. Buchanan, but failed

INTERREGNUM. 211

to extort more than commonplace generalities.
To Seward he wrote that he did not wish to inter-
fere with the present status, or to meddle with
slavery as it now lawfully existed. To like pur-
port he wrote to Alexander H. Stephens, induced
thereto by the famous Union speech of that gen-
tleman. He eschewed hostile feeling, saying: "I
never have been, am not now, and probably never
shall be, in a mood of harassing the people, either
North or South." Nevertheless while he said that
all were "brothers of a common country," he was
perfectly resolved that the country should remain
"common," even if the bond of brotherhood had
to be riveted by force. He admitted that this
necessity would be "an ugly point;" but he was
perfectly clear that "the right of a State to secede
is not an open or debatable question." He de-
sired that General Scott should be prepared either
to "hold or retake" the Southern forts, if need
should be, at or after the inauguration; but on
his journey to Washington he said to many audi-
ences that he wished no war and no bloodshed,
and that these evils could be avoided if people
would only "keep cool" and "keep their temper,
on both sides of the line."

On Monday, February 11, 1861, Mr. Lincoln
spoke to his fellow-citizens of Springfield a very
brief farewell, so solemn as to sound ominous in
the ears of those who know what afterward oc-
curred. It was arranged that he should stop at
various points upon the somewhat circuitous route

212 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

which had been laid out, and that he should arrive
in Washington on Saturday, February 23. The
programme was pursued accurately till near the
close ; he made, of course, many speeches, but none
added anything to what was already known as to
his views.

Meantime the thick rumors of violence were
bringing much uneasiness to persons who were
under responsibilities. Baltimore was the place
where, and its villainous "Plug Uglies" were the
persons by whom, the plot, if there was one, was
to be executed. Mr. Felton, President of the
Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Eailroad
Company, engaged Allan Pinkerton to explore the
matter, and the report of this skilful detective in-
dicated a probability of an attack with the pur-
pose of assassination. At that time the cars were
drawn by horses across town from the northern to
the southern station, and during the passage an
assault could be made with ease and with great
chance of success. As yet there was no indication
that the authorities intended to make, even if they
could make,1 any adequate arrangements for the
protection of the traveller. At Philadelphia Mr.
Lincoln was told of the fears of his friends, and
talked with Mr. Pinkerton, but he refused to
change his plan. On February 22 he was to
assist at a flag-raising in Philadelphia, and was
then to go on to Harrisburg, and on the following

1 Marshal Kane and most of the police were reported to be
Secessionists. Pinkerton, Spy of the Bebellion, 50, 61.

INTERREGNUM. 213

day he was to go from there to Baltimore. He
declined to alter either route or hours.

But other persons besides Mr. Felton had been
busy with independent detective investigations,
the result of which was in full accord with the
report of Mr. Pinkerton. On February 22 Mr.
Frederick W. Seward, sent by his father and
General Scott, both then at Washington, delivered
to Mr. Lincoln, at Philadelphia, the message that
there was "serious danger" to his life if the time
of his passage through Baltimore should be known.
Yet Lincoln still remained obdurate. He declared
that if an escorting delegation from Baltimore
should meet him at Harrisburg, he would go on
with it. But at Harrisburg no such escort pre-
sented itself. Then the few who knew the situa-
tion discussed further as to what should be done,
Orange B. Judd being chief spokesman for evad-
ing the danger by a change of programme. Natur-
ally the objection of seeming timid and of exciting
ridicule was present in the minds of all, and it
was put somewhat emphatically by Colonel Sum-
ner. Mr. Lincoln at last settled the dispute ; he
said: "I have thought over this matter consider-
ably since I went over the ground with Pinkerton
last night. The appearance of Mr. Frederick
Seward, with warning from another source, con-
firms Mr. Pinkerton 's belief. Unless there are
some other reasons besides fear of ridicule, I am
disposed to carry out Judd's plan."

This plan was accordingly carried out with the

214 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

success which its simplicity insured. Mr. Lin-
coln and his stalwart friend, Colonel Lamon,
slipped out of a side door to a hackney carriage,
were driven to the railway station, and returned
by the train to Philadelphia. Their departure was
not noticed, but had it been, news of it could not
have been sent away, for Mr. Felton had had the
telegraph wires secretly cut outside the town. He
also ordered, upon a plausible pretext, that the
southward-bound night train on his road should
be held back until the arrival of this train from
Harrisburg. Mr. Lincoln and Colonel Lamon
passed from the one train to the other without
recognition, and rolled into Washington early on
the following morning. Mr. Seward and Mr.
Washburne met Lincoln at the station and went
with him to Willard's Hotel. Soon afterward
the country was astonished, and perhaps some per-
sons were discomfited, as the telegraph carried
abroad the news of his arrival.

Those who were disappointed at this safe con-
clusion of his journey, if in fact there were any
such, together with many who would have con-
temned assassination, at once showered upon him
sneers and ridicule. They said that Lincoln had
put on a disguise and had shown the white feather,
when there had been no real danger. But this
was not just. Whether or not there was the com-
pleted machinery of a definite, organized plot for
assault and assassination is uncertain; that is to
say, this is not proved ; yet the evidence is so

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INTERREGNUM. 215

strong that the majority of investigators seem to
agree in the opinion that probably there was a
plan thoroughly concerted and ready for execu-
tion. Even if there was not, it was very likely
that a riot might be suddenly started, which
would be as fatal in its consequences as a premed-
itated scheme. But, after all, the question of the
plot is one of mere curiosity and quite aside from
the true issue. That issue, so far as it presented
itself for determination by Mr. Lincoln, was sim-
ply whether a case of such probability of danger
was made out that as a prudent man he should
over-rule the only real objection, — that of exciting
ridicule, — and avoid a peril which the best judges
believed to exist, and which, if it did exist, in-
volved consequences of immeasurable seriousness
not only to himself but to the nation. For a wise
man only one conclusion was possible. The story
of the disguise was a silly slander, based upon
the trifling fact that for this night journey Lincoln
wore a travelling cap instead of his hat.

Lincoln's own opinion as to the danger is not
quite clear.1 He said to Mr. Lossing that, after
hearing Mr. Seward, he believed "such a plot to
be in existence." But he also said: "I did not
then, nor do I now, believe I should have been
assassinated, had I gone through Baltimore as first
contemplated; but I thought it wise to run no
risk, where no risk was necessary."

1 Lamon says that Mr. Lincoln afterwards regretted this jour-
ney, and became convinced " that he had committed a grave mis-
take." Lamon, 527. So also McClure, 45, 48.

216 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The reflection can hardly fail to occur, how
grossly unfair it was that Mr. Lincoln should be
put into the position in which he was put at this
time, and then that fault should be found with
him even if his prudence was overstrained. Many
millions of people in the country hated him with
a hatred unutterable ; among them might well be
many fanatics, to whom assassination would seem
a noble act, many desperadoes who would regard it
as a pleasing excitement ; and he was to go through
a city which men of this stamp could at any time
dominate. The custom of the country compelled
this man, whom it had long since selected as its
ruler, to make a journey of extreme danger with-
out any species of protection whatsoever. So far
as peril went no other individual in the United
States had ever, presumably, been in a peril like
that which beset him ; so far as safeguards went,
he had no more than any other traveller. A few
friends volunteered to make the journey with him,
but they were useless as guardians; and he and
they were so hustled and jammed in the railway
stations that one of them actually had his arm
broken. This extraordinary spectacle may have
indicated folly on the part of the nation which
permitted it, but certainly it did not involve the
disgrace of the individual who had no choice about
it. The people put Mr. Lincoln in a position in
which he was subjected to the most appalling, as it
is the most vague, of all dangers, and then left him
to take care of himself as best he could. It was

INTERREGNUM. 217

ungenerous afterward to criticise him for exercis-
ing prudence in the performance of that duty
which he ought never to have been called upon to
perform at all.1

1 For accounts of this journey and statements of the evidence
of a plot, see Sehouler, Hist, of Mass. in Civil War, i. 59-65
(account by Samuel M. Felton, Prest. P. W. & B. R. R. Co.) ;
N. and H., iii. ch. 19 and 20 ; Chittenden, Recoil, of Lincoln, x. ;
Holland, 275 ; Arnold, 183-187 ; Lamon, ch. xx. ; (this account
ought to be, and doubtless is, the most trustworthy) ; Herndon,
492 (a bit of gossip which sounds improbable) ; Pinkerton, Spy
of the Rebellion, 45-103. On the anti-plot side of the question
the most important evidence is the little volume Baltimore and
the Nineteenth of April, 1861, by George William Brown. This
witness, whose strict veracity is beyond question, was mayor of
the city. One of his statements, especially, is of the greatest
importance. It is obvious that, if the plot existed, one of two
things ought to occur on the morning of February 23, viz. : either
the plotters and the mobsmen should know that Mr. Lincoln had
escaped them, or else they should be at the station at the hour
set for his arrival. In fact they were not at the station; there
was no sudden assault on the cars, nor other indication of assassins
and a mob. Had they, then, received knowledge of what had oc-
curred ? Those who sustain the plot-theory say that the news had
spread through the city, so that all the assassins and the gangs of
the " Plug Uglies " knew that their game was up. This was pos-
sible, for Mr. Lincoln had arrived in the Washington station a few
minutes after six o'clock in the morning, and the train which was
expected to bring him to Baltimore did not arrive in Baltimore
until half after eleven o'clock. But, on the other hand, the news
was not dispatched from Washington immediately upon his arrival ;
somewhat later, though still early in the morning, the detectives
telegraphed to the friends of Mr. Lincoln, but in cipher. Just at
what time intelligible telegrams, which would inform the public,
were sent out cannot be learned ; but upon any arrangement of
hours it is obvious that the time was exceedingly short for distrib-
uting the news throughout the lower quarters of Baltimore by word
of mouth, and there is no pretense of any publication. But while

218 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Immediately after his arrival in Washington
Mr. Lincoln received a visit from the members of
the Peace Congress. Grotesque and ridiculous
descriptions of him, as if he had been a Caliban
in education, manners, and aspect, had been rife
among Southerners, and the story goes that the
Southern delegates expected to be at once amused
and shocked by the sight of a clodhopper whose
conversation would be redolent of the barnyard,
not to say of the pigsty. Those of them who had
any skill in reading character were surprised, —
as the tradition is, — discomfited, even a little

the believers in the plot say, nevertheless, that this had been done
and that the story of the journey had spread through the city so
that all the assassins and " Plug Uglies ' ' knew it in time to avoid
assembling at the railway station about eleven o'clock, yet it ap-
pears that Mr. Brown, the mayor, knew nothing about it. On the
contrary, he tells us that in anticipation of Mr. Lincoln's arrival
he, "as mayor of the city, accompanied by the police commis-
sioners and supported by a strong force of police, was at the Cal-
vert Street station on Saturday morning, February 23d, at 11.30
o'clock . . . ready to receive with due respect the incoming Presi-
dent. An open carriage was in waiting, in which I was to have the
honor of escorting Mr. Lincoln through the city to the Washington
station, and of sharing in any danger which he might encounter.
It is hardly necessary to say that I apprehended none." To the
"great astonishment" of Mr. Brown, however, the train brought
only "Mrs. Lincoln and her three sons," and "it was then an-
nounced that he had passed through the city incognito in the night
train." This is a small bit of evidence to set against the elaborate
stories of the believers in the plot, yet to some it will seem like
the little obstruction which suffices to throw a whole railway train
from the track. I would rather let any reader, who is sufficiently
interested to examine the matter, reach his own conclusion, than
endeavor to furnish one for him ; for I think that a dispute more
difficult of really conclusive settlement will not easily be found.

INTERREGNUM. 219

alarmed, at what in fact they beheld ; for Mr. Lin-
coln appeared before them a self-possessed man,
expressing to them such clear convictions and such
a distinct and firm purpose as compelled them into
new notions of his capacity and told them of much
trouble ahead. His remark to Mr. Kives, coming
from one who spoke accurately, had an ominous
sound in rebellious ears: "My course is as plain
as a turnpike road. It is marked out by the Con-
stitution. I am in no doubt which way to go."
The wiser Southerners withdrew from this recep-
tion quite sober and thoughtful, with some new
ideas about the man with whom their relationship
seemed on the verge of becoming hostile. After
abundant allowance is made for the enthusiasm of
Northern admirers, it remains certain that Lincoln
bore well this severe ordeal of criticism on the part
of those who would have been glad to despise him.
Ungainly they saw him, but not undignified, and
the strange impressive sadness seldom dwelt so
strikingly upon his face as at this time, as though
all the weight of misery, which the millions of his
fellow-citizens were to endure throughout the com-
ing years, already burdened the soul of the ruler
who had been chosen to play the most responsible
part in the crisis and the anguish.

March 4, 1861, inauguration day, was fine and
sunny. If there had ever been any real danger
of trouble, the fear of it had almost entirely sub-
sided. Northerners and Southerners had found
out in good season that General Scott was not in

220 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

a temporizing mood ; he had in the city two bat-
teries, a few companies of regulars, — 653 men,
exclusive of some marines, — and the corps of
picked Washington Volunteers. He said that this
force was all he wanted. President Buchanan left
the White House in an open carriage, escorted by
a company of sappers and miners under Captain
Duane. At Willard's Hotel Mr. Lincoln entered
the carriage, and the two gentlemen passed along
the avenue, through crowds which cheered but
made no disturbance, to the Capitol. General
Scott with his regulars marched, "flanking the
movement, in parallel streets." His two batteries,
while not made unpleasantly conspicuous, yet con-
trolled the plateau which extends before the east
front of the Capitol. Mr. Lincoln was simply
introduced by Senator Baker of Oregon, and de-
livered his inaugural address. His voice had great
carrying capacity, and the vast crowd heard with
ease a speech of which every sentence was fraught
with an importance and scrutinized with an anxiety
far beyond that of any other speech ever delivered
in the United States. At its close the venerable
Chief Justice Taney administered the oath of
office, thereby informally but effectually reversing
the most famous opinion delivered by him during
his long incumbency in his high office.

The inaugural address was simple, earnest and
direct, unencumbered by that rhetorical ornament-
ation which the American people have always
admired as the highest form of eloquence. Those

Ene* iy AB Hall. Bev

Vu,

INTERREGNUM, 221

Northerners who had expected magniloquent pe-
riods and exaggerated outbursts of patriotism were
disappointed ; and as they listened in vain for the
scream of the eagle, many grumbled at the absence
of what they conceived to be force. Yet the gen-
eral feeling was of satisfaction, which grew as the
address was more thoroughly studied. The South-
erners, upon their part, looking anxiously to see
whether or not they must fight for their purpose,
construed the words of the new President cor-
rectly. They heard him say: "The union of these
States is perpetual." "No State upon its own
mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union."
"I shall take care, as the Constitution itself ex-
pressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the
Union be faithfully executed in all the States."
He also declared his purpose "to hold, occupy and
possess the property and places belonging to the
Government, and to collect the duties and im-
posts." These sentences made up the issue di-
rectly with secession, and the South, reading
them, knew that, if the North was ready to back
the President, war was inevitable; none the less
so because Mr. Lincoln closed with patriotic and
generous words: "We are not enemies, but
friends. Wc must not be enemies. Though pas-
sion may have strained, it must not break our
bonds of affection."

Until after the election of Mr. Lincoln in No-
vember, 1860, the sole issue between the North and
the South, between Eepublicans on the one hand

222 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

and Democrats and Compromisers on the other,
had related to slavery. Logically the position of
the Bepublicans was impregnable. Their plat-
forms and their leaders agreed that the party
intended strictly to respect the Constitution, and
not to interfere at all with slavery in the States
within which it now lawfully existed. They said
with truth that they had in no case deprived the
slave-holding communities of their rights, and they
denied the truth of the charge that they cherished
an inchoate design to interfere with those rights;
adding very truly that, at worst, a mere design,
which did not find expression in an overt act, could
give no right of action to the South. Mr. Lincoln
had been most explicit in declaring that the op-
position to slavery was not to go beyond efforts to
prevent its extension, which efforts would be wholly
within the Constitution and the law. He repeated
these things in his inaugural.

But while these incontrovertible allegations gave
the Republicans a logical advantage of which they
properly made the most, the South claimed a right
to make other collateral and equally undeniable
facts the ground of action. The only public mat-
ter in connection with which Mr. Lincoln had won
any reputation was that of slavery. No one could
deny that he had been elected because the Repub-
lican party had been pleased with his expression of
opinion on this subject. Now his most pointed
and frequently reiterated expression of that opin-
ion was, that slavery was a "moral, social, and

INTERREGNUM. 223

political evil;" and this language was a fair
equivalent of the statement of the Eepublican
platform of 1856, classing Slavery and Mormonism
together, as "twin relics of barbarism." That the
North was willing, or would long be willing, to re-
main in amicable social and political bonds with a
moral, social, and political evil, and a relic of bar-
barism, was intrinsically improbable, and was made
more improbable by the symptoms of the times.1
Indeed, Mr. Seward had said, in famous words,
that his section would not play this unworthy part ;
he had proclaimed already the existence of an "ir-
repressible conflict; " and therefore the South had
the word of the Republican leader that, in spite of
the Republican respect for the law, an anti-slavery
crusade was already in existence. The Southern
chiefs distinctly recognized and accepted this situ-
ation.2 There was an avowed Northern condem-

1 Some of the Southern members of Congress collected and
recited sundry noteworthy utterances of Republicans concerning
slavery, and certainly there was little in them to induce a sense of
security on the part of slave-holders. Wilson, Rise and Fall of
Slave Power, iii. 97, 154.

2 Toombs declared, as Lincoln had said, that what was wanted
was that the North should call slavery right. Wilson, Bise and
Fall of Slave Power, iii. 76. Stephens declared the " corner stone "
of the new government to be " the great truth that the negro is
not equal to the white man ; that slavery ... is his natural and
normal condition ; " and said that it was the first government " in
the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philo-
sophical and moral truth." N. and H., iii. 203 ; and see his letter
to Lincoln, ibid. 272, 273. Mississippi, in declaring the causes of
her secession, said : " Our position is thoroughly identical with the
institution of slavery, — the greatest material interest in the world."

224 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

nation of their institution; there was an acknow-
ledged "conflict." Such being the case it was the
opinion of the chief men at the South that the
position taken by the North, of strict performance
of clear constitutional duties concerning an odious
institution, would not suffice for the safe perpetu-
ation of that institution.1 This, their judgment,
appeared to be in a certain way also the judgment
of Mr. Lincoln; for he also conceived that to
put slavery where the "fathers " had left it was to
put it "in the way of ultimate extinction;" and
he had, in the most famous utterance of his life,
given his forecast of the future to the effect that
the country would in time be "all free." The
only logical deduction was that he, and the Repub-
lican party which had agreed with him sufficiently
to make him President, believed that the South
had no lawful recourse by which this result, how-
ever unwelcome or ruinous, could in the long run
and the fulness of time be escaped. Under such

N. and H., iii. 201. Senator Mason, of Virginia, said : It is " a war
of sentiment, of opinion ; a war of one form of society against an-
other form of society." Wilson, Rise and Fall of Slave Power,
iii. 26. Green, of Missouri, ascribed the trouble to the " vitiated
and corrupted state of public sentiment." Ibid. 23. Iverson, of
Georgia, said it was the " public sentiment " at the North, not the
" overt acts " of the Republican administration, that was feared ;
and said that there was ineradicable enmity between the two sec-
tions, which had not lived together in peace, were not so living
now, and could not be expected to do so in the future. Ibid. 17.

1 Historians generally seem to admit that the South had to
choose between making the fight now, and seeing its favorite
institution gradually become extinct.

INTERREGNUM. 225

circumstances Southern political leaders now de-
cided that the time for separation had come. In
speaking of their scheme they called it "secession,"
and said that secession was a lawful act because
the Constitution was a compact revocable by any
of the parties. They might have called it "revo-
lution,"1 and have defended it upon the general
right of any large body of people, dissatisfied with
the government under which they find themselves,
to cast it off. But, if the step was revolution,
then the burden of proof was upon them ; whereas
they said that secession was their lawful right,
without any regard whatsoever to the motive which
induced them to exercise it.2 Such was the char-
acter of the issue between the North and the South
prior to the first ordinance of secession. The
action of South Carolina, followed by the other
Gulf States, at once changed that issue, shifting
it from pro-slavery versus anti-slavery, to union
versus disunion. This alteration quickly compelled
great numbers of men both at the North and at
the South, to reconsider and, upon a new issue,
to place themselves also anew.

It has been said by all writers that in the seven
seceding States there was, in the four months fol-
lowing the election, a very large proportion of
"Union men." The name only signified that
these men did not think that the present induce-
ments to disunion were sufficient to render it a

1 Sometimes, though very rarely, the word was used.

2 See Lincoln's Message to Congress, July 4, 1861.

226 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

wise measure. It did not signify that they
thought disunion unlawful, unconstitutional, and
treasonable. When, however, state conventions
decided the question of advisability against their
opinions, and they had to choose between alle-
giance to the State and allegiance to the Union,
they immediately adhered to the State, and this
none the less because they feared that she had
taken an ill-advised step. That is to say, at the
South a "Union man" wished to preserve the
Union, whereas at the North a "Union man"
recognized a supreme obligation to do so.

While the South, by political alchemy, was
becoming solidified and homogeneous, a corre-
sponding change was going on at the North. In
that section the great numbers — of whom some
would have re-made the Constitution, others would
have agreed to peaceable separation, and still
others would have made any concession to retain
the integrity of the Union — now saw that these
were indeed, as Jefferson Davis had said, "quack
nostrums," and that the choice lay between per-
mitting a secession accompanied with insulting
menaces and some degree of actual violence, and
maintaining the Union by coercion. In this di-
lemma great multitudes of Northern Democrats,
whose consciences had never been in the least dis-
turbed by the existence of slavery in the country
or even by efforts to extend it, became "Union
men " in the Northern sense of the word, which
made it about equivalent to coercionists. Their

INTERREGNUM. 227

simple creed was the integrity and perpetuity of
the nation.

Mr. Lincoln showed in his inaugural his accu-
rate appreciation of the new situation. Owing all
that he had become in the world to a few anti-
slavery speeches, elevated to the presidency by
votes which really meant little else than hostility
to slavery, what was more natural than that he
should at this moment revert to this great topic
and make the old dispute the main part and real
substance of his address ? But this fatal error he
avoided. With unerring judgment he dwelt little
on that momentous issue which had only just been
displaced, and took his stand fairly upon that still
more momentous one which had so newly come up.
He spoke for the Union ; upon that basis a united
North ought to support him ; upon that basis the
more northern of the slave States might remain
loyal. As matter of fact Union had suddenly
become the real issue, but it needed at the hands
of the President to be publicly and explicitly an-
nounced as such; his recognition was essential;
he gave it on this earliest opportunity, and the
announcement was the first great service of the
new Eepublican ruler. It seems now as though
he could hardly have done otherwise or have fallen
into the error of allying himself with bygone or
false issues. It may be admitted that he could
not have passed this new one by ; but the impor-
tant matter was that of proportion and relation,
and in this it was easy to blunder. In truth it

228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

was a crisis when blundering was so easy that
nearly all the really able men of the North had
been doing it badly for three or four months past,
and not a few of them were going to continue it
for two or three months to come. Therefore, the
sound conception of the inaugural deserves to be
considered as an indication, one among many, of
Lincoln's capacity for seeing with entire distinct-
ness the great main fact, and for recognizing it as
such. Other matters, which lay over and around
such a fact, side issues, questions of detail, affairs
of disguise or deception, never confused or misled
him. He knew with unerring accuracy where the
biggest fact lay, and he always anchored fast to it,
and stayed with it. For many years he had been
anchored to anti-slavery; now, in the face of the
nation, he shifted his anchorage to the Union;
and each time he held securely.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BEGINNING OF WAR.

From the inaugural ceremonies Lincoln drove
quietly back through Pennsylvania Avenue and
entered the White House, the President of the
United States, — alas, united no longer. Many an
anxious citizen breathed more freely when the
dreaded hours had passed without disturbance.
But burdens a thousand-fold heavier than any
which were lifted from others descended upon the
new ruler. Save, however, that the thoughtful,
far-away expression of sadness had of late seemed
deeper and more impressive than ever before, Lin-
coln gave no sign of inward trouble. His singular
temperament armed him with a rare and peculiar
strength beneath responsibility and in the face of
duty. He has been seen, with entire tranquillity,
not only seeking, but seeming to assume as his
natural due or destiny, positions which appeared
preposterously out of accord alike with his early
career and with his later opportunities for develop-
ment. In trying to explain this, it is easier to
say what was not the underlying quality than what
it was. Certainly there was no taint whatsoever
of that vulgar self-confidence, which is so apt

230 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

to lead the "free and equal" citizens of the great
Eepublic into grotesque positions. Perhaps it was
a grand simplicity of faith ; a profound instinctive
confidence that by patient, honest thinking it would
be possible to know the right road, and by earnest
enduring courage to follow it. Perhaps it was
that so-called divine inspiration which seems always
a part of the highest human fitness. The fact
which is distinctly visible is, that a fair, plain and
honest method of thinking saved him from the
perplexities which beset subtle dialecticians in pol-
itics and in constitutional law. He had lately said
that his course was "as plain as a turnpike road; "
it was, to execute the public laws.

His duty was simple; his understanding of it
was unclouded by doubt or sophistry; his resolu-
tion to do it was firm; but whether his hands would
be strengthened sufficiently to enable him to do it
was a question of grave anxiety. The President
of a Eepublic can do everything if the people are
at his back, and almost nothing if the people are
not at his back. Where, then, were now the peo-
ple of the United States ? In seven States they
were openly and unitedly against him ; in at least
seven more they were under a very strong tempta-
tion to range themselves against him in case of a
conflict; and as for the Republican States of the
North, on that fourth day of March, 1861, no man
could say to what point they would sustain the
administration. There had as yet come slight
indications of any change in the conceding, com-

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 231

promising temper of that section. Greeley and
Seward and Wendell Phillips, representative men,
were little better than Secessionists. The state-
ment sounds ridiculous, yet the proof against each
comes from his own mouth. The "Tribune" had
retracted none of those disunion sentiments, of
which examples have been given. Even so late as
April 10, 1861, Mr. Seward wrote officially to Mr.
C. F. Adams, Minister to England, "Only an im-
perial and despotic government could subjugate
thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members
of the State. This federal, republican country of
ours is, of all forms of government, the very one
which is the most unfitted for such a labor." He
had been and still was favoring delay and concilia-
tion, in the visionary hope that the seceders would
follow the scriptural precedent of the prodigal son.
On April 9, the rumor of a fight at Sumter being
spread abroad, Mr. Phillips said:1 "Here are a
series of States, girding the Gulf, who think that
their peculiar institutions require that they should
have a separate government. They have a right
to decide that question without appealing to you
or me. . . . Standing with the principles of '76
behind us, who can deny them the right? . . .
Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort
Sumter. . . . There is no longer a Union. . . .
Mr. Jefferson Davis is angry, and Mr. Abraham
Lincoln is mad, and they agree to fight. . . . You

1 At New Bedford, in a lecture " which was interrupted by fre-
quent hisses." Schouler, Hist, of Mass. in the Civil War, i. 44-47.

232 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

cannot go through Massachusetts and recruit men
to bombard Charleston or New Orleans. . . . We
are in no condition to fight. . . . Nothing but
madness can provoke war with the Gulf States;"
— with much more to the same effect.

If the veterans of the old anti-slavery contest
were in this frame of mind in April, Lincoln could
hardly place much dependence upon the people at
large in March. If he could not "recruit men"
in Massachusetts, in what State could he reasona-
bly expect to do so? Against such discourage-
ment it can only be said that he had a singular
instinct for the underlying popular feeling, that he
could scent it in the distance and in hiding; more-
over, that he was always willing to run the chance
of any consequences which might follow the per-
formance of a clear duty. Still, as he looked over
the dreary Northern field in those chill days of
early March, he must have had a marvellous sensi-
tiveness in order to perceive the generative heat
and force in the depths beneath the cheerless sur-
face and awaiting only the fulness of the near
spring season to burst forth in sudden universal
vigor. Yet such was his knowledge and such his
faith concerning the people that we may fancy, if
we will, that he foresaw the great transformation.
But there were still other matters which disturbed
him. Before his inauguration, he had heard much
of his coming official isolation. One of the argu-
ments reiterated alike by Southern Unionists and
by Northerners had been that the Republican

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 233

President would be powerless, because the Senate,
the House, and the Supreme Court were all op-
posed to him. But the supposed lack of political
sympathy on the part of these bodies, however it
might beget anxiety for the future, was for the
present of much less moment than another fact,
viz., that none of the distinguished men, leaders
in his own party, whom Lincoln found about him
at Washington, were in a frame of mind to assist
him efficiently. If all did not actually distrust his
capacity and character, — which, doubtless, many
honestly did, — at least they were profoundly ig-
norant concerning both. Therefore they could not
yet, and did not, place genuine, implicit confidence
in him ; they could not yet, and did not, advise and
aid him at all in the same spirit and with the same
usefulness as later they were able to do. They
were not to blame for this; on the contrary, the
condition had been brought about distinctly against
their will, since certainly few of them had looked
with favor upon the selection of an unknown, in-
experienced, ill-educated man as the Republican
candidate for the presidency. How much Lincoln
felt his loneliness will never be known ; for, reti-
cent and self-contained at all times, he gave no
outward sign. That he felt it less than other men
would have done may be regarded as certain ; for,
as has already appeared to some extent, and as
will appear much more in this narrative, he was
singularly self-reliant, and, at least in appearance,
was strangely indifferent to any counsel or support

234 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

which could be brought to him by others. Yet,
marked as was this trait in him, he could hardly
have been human had he not felt oppressed by the
personal solitude and political isolation of his posi-
tion when the responsibility of his great office
rested newly upon him. Under all these circum-
stances, if this lonely man moved slowly and cau-
tiously during the early weeks of his administra-
tion, it was not at his door that the people had the
right to lay the reproach of weakness or hesitation.
Mr. Buchanan, for the convenience of his suc-
cessor, had called an extra session of the Senate,
and on March 5 President Lincoln sent in the
nominations for his Cabinet. All were immedi-
ately confirmed, as follows : —

William H. Seward, New York, Secretary of State.
Salmon P. Chase, Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury.
Simon Cameron, Pennsylvania, Secretary of War.
Gideon Welles, Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy.
Caleb B. Smith, Indiana, Secretary of the Interior.
Edward Bates, Missouri, Attorney-General.
Montgomery Blair, Maryland, Postmaster-General.

It is matter of course that a Cabinet slate should
fail to give general satisfaction ; and this one en-
countered fully the average measure of criticism.
The body certainly was somewhat heterogeneous
in its composition, yet the same was true of the
Republican party which it represented. Nor was
it by any means so heterogeneous as Mr. Lincoln
had designed to have it, for he had made efforts
to place in it a Southern spokesman for Southern

I-

234 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 235

views ; and he had not desisted from the purpose
until its futility was made apparent by the direct
refusal of Mr. Gilmer of North Carolina, and by
indications of a like unwillingness on the part of
one or two other Southerners who were distantly
sounded on the subject. Seward, Chase, Bates
and Cameron were the four men who had mani-
fested the greatest popularity, after Lincoln, in
the national convention, and the selection of them,
therefore, showed that Mr. Lincoln was seeking
strength rather than amity in his Cabinet; for it
was certainly true that each one of them had a fol-
lowing which was far from being wholly in sym-
pathy with the following of any one of the others.
The President evidently believed that it was of
more importance that each great body of Northern
men should feel that its opinions were fairly pre-
sented, than that his Cabinet officers should always
comfortably unite in looking at questions from one
and the same point of view. Judge Davis says
that Lincoln's original design was to appoint
Democrats and Republicans alike to office. He
carried this theory so far that the radical Republi-
cans regarded the make-up of the Cabinet as a
"disgraceful surrender to the South;" while men
of less extreme views saw with some alarm that he
had called to his advisory council four ex-Demo-
crats and only three ex- Whigs, a criticism which
he met by saying that he himself was an "old-line
Whig " and should be there to make the parties
even. On the other hand, the Republicans of the

236 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

middle line of States grumbled much at the selec-
tion of Bates and Blair as representatives of their
section.

The Cabinet had not been brought together
without some jarring and friction, especially in the
case of Cameron. On December 31 Mr. Lincoln
intimated to him that he should have either the
Treasury or the War Department, but on January
3 requested him to "decline the appointment."
Cameron, however, had already mentioned the
matter to many friends, without any suggestion
that he should not be glad to accept either position,
and therefore, even if he were willing to accede to
the sudden, strange, and unexplained request of
Mr. Lincoln, he would have found it difficult to
do so without giving rise to much embarrassing
gossip. Accordingly he did not decline, and there-
upon ensued much wire-pulling. Pennsylvania
protectionists wanted Cameron in the Treasury,
and strenuously objected to Chase as an ex-Demo-
crat of free-trade proclivities. On the other hand,
Lincoln gradually hardened into the resolution that
Chase should have the Treasury. He made the
tender, and it was accepted. He then offered
consolation to Pennsylvania by giving the War
portfolio to Cameron, which was accepted with
something of chagrin. How far this Cameron
episode was affected by the bargain declared by
Lamon to have been made at Chicago cannot be
told. Other biographers ignore this story, but I
do not see how the direct testimony furnished by

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 237

Lamon and corroborated by Colonel McClure can
justly be treated in this way ; neither is the temp-
tation so to treat it apparent, since the evidence
entirely absolves Lincoln from any complicity at
the time of making the alleged "trade," while
he could hardly be blamed if he felt somewhat
hampered by it afterward.

Seward also gave trouble which he ought not
to have given. On December 8 Lincoln wrote to
him that he would nominate him as Secretary of
State. Mr. Seward assented and the matter re-
mained thus comfortably settled until so late as
March 2, 1861, when Seward wrote a brief note
asking "leave to withdraw his consent." Appar-
ently the Democratic complexion of the Cabinet,
and the suggestions of suspicious friends made
him fear that his influence in the ministry would
be inferior to that of Chase. Coming at this
eleventh hour, which already had its weighty
burden of many anxieties, this brief destructive
note was both embarrassing and exasperating.
It meant the entire reconstruction of the cabinet.
Never did Lincoln's tranquil indifference to per-
sonal provocation stand him in better stead than
in this crisis, — for a crisis it was when Seward,
in discontent and distrust, desired to draw aloof
from the administration. He held the note of the
recalcitrant politician for two days unanswered,
then he wrote a few lines: "Your note," he said,
"is the subject of the most painful solicitude with
me; and I feel constrained to beg that you will

238 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

countermand the withdrawal. The public interest,
I think, demands that you should ; and my personal
feelings are deeply enlisted in the same direction."
These words set Mr. Seward right again; on
March 5 he withdrew his letter of March 2, and
in a few hours was appointed.

Immediately after the installation of the new
government three commissioners from the Confed-
eracy came to Washington, and requested an offi-
cial audience. They said that seven States of the
American Union had withdrawn therefrom, had
reassumed sovereign power, and were now an in-
dependent nation in fact and in right; that, in
order to adjust upon terms of amity and good-will
all questions growing out of this political separa-
tion, they were instructed to make overtures for
opening negotiations, with the assurance that the
Confederate Government earnestly desired a peace-
ful solution and would make no demand not
founded in strictest justice, neither do any act to
injure their late confederates. From the Confed-
erate point of view these approaches were dignified
and conciliatory ; from the Northern point of view
they were treasonable and insolent. Probably the
best fruit which Mr. Davis hoped from them was
that Mr. Seward, who was well known to be desir-
ous of finding some peace -assuring middle course,
might be led into a discussion of the situation,
inevitably provoking divisions in the Cabinet, in
the Republican party, and in the country. But
though Seward's frame of mind about this time

Jig^By-ATTRitcb:

i^_ /ih/e.

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 239

was such as to put him in great jeopardy of com-
mitting hurtful blunders, he was fortunate enough
to escape quite doing so. To the agent of the com-
missioners he replied that he must "consult the
President," and the next day he wrote, in terms of
personal civility, that he could not receive them.
Nevertheless they remained in Washington a few
weeks longer, gathering and forwarding to the
Confederate government such information as they
could. In this they were aided by Judge Camp-
bell, of Alabama, a Secessionist, who still retained
his seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court.
This gentleman now became a messenger between
the commissioners and Mr. Seward, with the pur-
pose of eliciting news and even pledges from the
latter for the use of the former. His errands es-
pecially related to Fort Sumter, and he gradually
drew from Mr. Seward strong expressions of opin-
ion that Sumter would in time be evacuated, even
declarations substantially to the effect that this
was the arranged policy of the government.
Words which fell in so agreeably with the wishes
of the Judge and the commissioners were received
with that warm welcome which often outruns cor-
rect construction, and later were construed by them
as actual assurances, at least in substance, whereby
they conceived themselves to have been "abused
and over-reached," and they charged the govern-
ment with "equivocating conduct." In the second
week in April, contemporaneously with the Sum-
ter crisis, they addressed to Mr. Seward a high-

240 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

flown missive of reproach, in which they ostenta-
tiously washed the hands of the South, as it were,
and shook from their own departing feet the dust
of the obdurate North, where they had not been
met "in the conciliatory and peaceful spirit" in
which they had come. They invoked "impartial
history " to place the responsibility of blood and
mourning upon those who had denied the great
fundamental doctrine of American liberty; and
they declared it "clear that Mr. Lincoln had de-
termined to appeal to the sword to reduce the peo-
ple of the Confederate States to the will of the
section or party whose President he is." In this
dust-cloud of glowing rhetoric vanished the last
deceit of peaceful settlement.

About the same time, April 13, sundry commis-
sioners from the Virginia convention waited upon
Lincoln with the request that he would communi-
cate the policy which he intended to pursue to-
wards the Confederate States. Lincoln replied
with a patient civility that cloaked satire : " Hav-
ing at the beginning of my official term expressed
my intended policy as plainly as I was able, it is
with deep regret and some mortification I now
learn that there is great and injurious uncertainty
in the public mind as to what that policy is, and
what course I intend to pursue." To this ratifica-
tion of the plain position taken in his inaugural, he
added that he might see fit to repossess himself of
the public property, and that possibly he might
withdraw the mail service from the seceding States.

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 241

The inauguration of Mr. Lincoln was followed
by a lull which endured for several weeks. A like
repose reigned contemporaneously in the Confed-
erate States. For a while the people in both sec-
tions received with content this reaction of quies-
cence. But as the same laws of human nature
were operative equally at the North and at the
South, it soon came about that both at the North
and at the South there broke forth almost simul-
taneously strong manifestations of impatience.
The genuine President at Washington and the
sham President at Montgomery were assailed by
the like pressing demand: Why did they not do
something to settle this matter ? Southern irasci-
bility found the situation exceedingly trying. The
imposing and dramatic attitude of the Confederate
States had not achieved an appropriate result.
They had organized a government and posed as an
independent nation, but no power in the civilized
world had yet recognized them in this character;
on the contrary, Abraham Lincoln, living hard by
in the White House, was explicitly denying it,
contumaciously alleging himself to be their lawful
ruler, and waiting with an exasperating patience
to see what they really were going to do in the
business which they had undertaken. They must
make some move or they would become ridiculous,
and their revolution would die and their confed-
eracy would dissolve from sheer inanition. The
newspapers told their leaders this plainly; and a
prominent gentleman of Alabama said to Mr.

242 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Davis: "Sir, unless you sprinkle blood in the face
of the people of Alabama, they will be back in
the Union in ten days." On the other hand, the
people of the North were as energetic as the sons
of the South were excitable, and with equal ur-
gency they also demanded a conclusion. If the
Union was to be enforced why did not Mr. Lin-
coln enforce it? How long did he mean placidly
to suffer treason and a rival government to rest
undisturbed within the country?

With this state of feeling growing rapidly more
intense in both sections, action was inevitable.
Yet neither leader wished to act first, even for the
important purpose of gratifying the popular will.
As where two men are resolved to fight, yet have
an uneasy vision of a judge and jury in waiting
for them, each seeks to make the other the assail-
ant and himself to be upon his defense, so these
two rulers took prudent thought of the tribunal
of public sentiment not in America alone but in
Europe also, with perhaps a slight forward glance
towards posterity. If Mr. Lincoln did not like
to "invade" the Southern territory, Mr. Davis
was equally reluctant to make the Southern " with-
drawal " actively belligerent through operations of
military offense. Both men were capable of
statesmanlike waiting to score a point that was
worth waiting for; Davis had been for years bid-
ing the ripeness of time, but Lincoln had the ca-
pacity of patience beyond any precedent on record.

The spot where the strain came, where this ques-

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 2 AS

tion of the first blow must be settled, was at Fort
Sumter, in the mid-throat of Charleston harbor.
On December 27, 1860, by a skilful movement at
night, Major Anderson, the commander at Fort
Moultrie, had transferred his scanty force from
that dilapidated and untenable post on the shore
to the more defensible and more important posi-
tion of Fort Sumter. Thereafter a precarious
relationship betwixt peace and war had subsisted
between him and the South Carolinians. It was
distinctly understood that, sooner or later, by ne-
gotiation or by force, South Carolina intended to
possess herself of this fortress. From her point
of view it certainly was preposterous and unendur-
able that the key to her chief harbor and city
should be permanently held by a "foreign " power.
Gradually she erected batteries on the neighboring
mainland and kept a close surveillance upon the
troops now more than half besieged in the fort.

Under the Buchanan regime the purpose of the
United States government had been less plain than
it became after Mr. Lincoln's accession; for Bu-
chanan had not the courage either to order a sur-
render, or to provoke real warfare by reinforcing
the place. In vain did the unfortunate Major
Anderson seek distinct instructions; the replies
which he received were contradictory and more
obscure than Delphic oracles. This unfair, vacil-
lating and contemptible conduct indicated the de-
sire to lay upon him alone the whole responsibility
of the situation, with a politic and selfish reserva-

244 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

tion to the government of the advantage of disa-
vowing and discrediting him, whatever he might
do. On January 9 a futile effort at communica-
tion was made by the steamer Star of the West;
it failed, and left matters worse rather than better.
On March 3, 1861, the Confederate government
put General Beauregard in command at Charleston,
thereby emphasizing the resolution to have Sumter
ere long. Such was the situation on March 4,
when Mr. Lincoln came into control and declared
a policy which bound him to "hold, occupy, and
possess " Sumter. On the same day there came a
letter from Major Anderson, describing his posi-
tion. There were shut up in the fort together a
certain number of men and a certain quantity of
biscuit and of pork; when the men should have
eaten the biscuit and the pork, which they would
probably do in about four weeks, they would have
to go away. The problem thus became direct,
simple, and urgent.

Lincoln sought an opinion from Scott, and was
told that "evacuation seems almost inevitable. "
He requested a more thorough investigation, and
a reply to specific questions: "To what point of
time can Anderson maintain his position in Sum-
ter? Can you, with present means, relieve him
in that time? What additional means would
enable you to do so?" The General answered
that four months would be necessary to prepare
the naval force, and an even longer time to get
together the 5000 regular troops and 20,000 vol-

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 245

unteers that would be needed, to say nothing of
obtaining proper legislation from Congress.
Equally discouraging were the opinions of the
Cabinet officers. On March 15 Lincoln put to
them the question: "Assuming it to be possible
to now provision Fort Sumter, under all the cir-
cumstances is it wise to attempt it?" Only Chase
and Blair replied that it would be wise ; "Seward,
Cameron, Welles, Smith and Bates were against it.
The form of this question indicated that Lincoln
contemplated a possibility of being compelled to
recede from the policy expressed in his inaugural.
Yet it was not his temperament to abandon a
purpose deliberately matured and definitely an-
nounced, except under absolute necessity. To de-
termine now this question of necessity he sent an
emissary to Sumter and another to Charleston,
and meantime stayed offensive action on the part
of the Confederates by authorizing Seward to give
assurance through Judge Campbell that no provi-
sioning or reinforcement should be attempted with-
out warning. Thus he secured, or continued, a
sort of truce, irregular and informal, but practical.
Meantime he was encouraged by the earnest pro-
positions of Mr. G. V. Fox, until lately an officer
of the navy, who was ready to undertake the relief
of the fort. Eager discussions ensued, wherein
naval men backed the project of Mr. Fox, and
army men condemned it. Such difference of ex-
pert opinion was trying, for the problem was of a
kind which Mr. Lincoln's previous experience in

246 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

life did not make it easy for him to solve with any
confidence in the correctness of his own judgment.

Amid this puzzlement day after day glided by,
and the question remained unsettled. Yet during
this lapse of time sentiment was ripening, and per-
haps this was the real purpose of Lincoln's patient
waiting. On March 29 his ministers again put
their opinions in writing, and now Chase, Welles
and Blair favored an effort at reinforcement ; Bates
modified his previous opposition so far as to say
that the time had come either to evacuate or relieve
the fort; Smith favored evacuation, but only on
the ground of military necessity ; and Seward alone
advocated evacuation in part on the ground of pol-
icy; he deemed it unwise to "provoke a civil war,"
especially "in rescue of an untenable position."

Was it courtesy or curiosity that induced the
President to sit and listen to this warm debate
between his chosen advisers? They would have
been angry had they known that they were bring-
ing their counsel to a chief who had already made
his decision. They did not yet know that upon
every occasion of great importance Lincoln would
make up his mind for and by himself, yet would
not announce his decision, or save his counsellors
the trouble of counselling, until such time as he
should see fit to act. So in this instance he had
already, the day before the meeting of the Cabinet,
directed Fox to draw up an order for such ships,
men, and supplies as he would require, and when
the meeting broke up he at once issued formal

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 247

orders to the Secretaries of the Navy and of War
to enter upon the necessary preparation.

Contemporaneously with this there was also un-
dertaken another enterprise for the relief of Fort
Pickens at Pensacola. It was, however, kept so
strictly secret that the President did not even
communicate it to Mr. Welles. Apparently his
only reason for such extreme reticence lay in the
proverb: "If you wish your secret kept, keep it."
But proverbial wisdom had an unfortunate result
upon this occasion. Both the President and
Mr. Welles set the eye of desire upon the warship
Powhatan, lying in New York harbor. The Sec-
retary designed her for the Sumter fleet ; the Pres-
ident meant to send her to Pensacola. Of the
Sumter expedition she was an absolutely essential
part ; for the Pensacola plan she was not altogether
indispensable.

On April 6 Captain Mercer, on board the Pow-
hatan as his flagship, and on the very point of
weighing anchor to sail in command of the Sum-
ter reinforcement, under orders from Secretary
Welles, was astounded to find himself dispossessed
and superseded by Lieutenant Porter, who sud-
denly came upon the deck bringing an order signed
by the President himself. A few hours later, at
Washington, a telegram startled Mr. Welles with
the news. Utterly confounded, he hastened, in
the early night time, to the White House, and
obtained an audience of the President. Then
Mr. Lincoln learned what a disastrous blunder he

248 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

had made; greatly mortified, lie requested Mr.
Seward to telegraph with all haste to New York
that the Powhatan must be immediately restored
to Mercer for Sumter. Lieutenant Porter was
already far down the bay, when he was overtaken
by a swift tug bringing this message. But unfor-
tunately Mr. Seward had so phrased the dispatch
that it did not purport to convey an order either
from the President or the Secretary of the Navy,
and he had signed his own name : " Give up the
Powhatan to Mercer. Seward." To Porter,
hurriedly considering this unintelligible occurrence,
it seemed better to go forward under the Presi-
dent's order than to obey the order of an official
who had no apparent authority to command him.
So he steamed on for Pensacola.

On April 8, discharging the obligation of warn-
ing, Mr. Lincoln notified General Beauregard that
an attempt would be made to put provisions into
Sumter, but not at present to put in men, arms,
or ammunition, unless the fort should be attacked.
Thereupon Beauregard, at two o'clock p. M. on
April 11, sent to Anderson a request for a sur-
render. Anderson refused, remarking incidentally
that he should be starved out in a few days. At
3.20 a. M., on April 12, Beauregard notified An-
derson that he should open fire in one hour. That
morning the occupants of Sumter, 9 commissioned
officers, 68 non-commissioned officers and privates,
8 musicians, and 43 laborers, breakfasted on pork
and water, the last rations in the fort. Before

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THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 24:9

daybreak the Confederate batteries were pouring
shot and shell against the walls. Response was
made from as many guns as the small body of
defenders could handle. But the fort was more
easily damaged than were the works on the main-
land, and on the morning of the 13th, the officers'
quarters having caught fire, and the magazine be-
ing so imperilled that it had to be closed and cov-
ered with earth, the fort became untenable. Early
in the evening terms of capitulation were agreed
upon.

Meantime three transports of the relief expedi-
tion were lying outside the bar. The first arrived
shortly before the bombardment began, the other
two came only a trifle later. All day long these
vessels lay to, wondering why the Powhatan did
not appear. Had she been there upon the critical
night of the 12th, the needed supplies could have
been thrown into the fort, for the weather was so
dark that the rebel patrol was useless, and it was
actually believed in Charleston that the relief had
been accomplished. But the Powhatan was far
away steaming at full speed for Pensacola. For
this sad blunder Lincoln generously, but fairly
enough, took the blame to himself. The only ex-
cuse which has ever been advanced in behalf of
Mr. Lincoln is that he allowed himself to be led
blindfold through this important business by Mr.
Seward, and that he signed such papers as the
Secretary of State presented to him without learn-
ing their purport and bearing. But such an ex-

250 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

cuse, even if it can be believed, seems fully as bad
as the blunder which it is designed to palliate.

Other blame also has been laid upon Lincoln on
the ground that he was dilatory in reaching the
determination to relieve the fort. That the deci-
sion should have been reached and the expedition
dispatched more promptly is entirely evident; but
whether or not Lincoln was in fault is quite an-
other question. Three facts are to be considered:
1. The highest military authority in the country
advised him, a civilian, that evacuation was a
necessity. 2. Most of his ministers were at first
against reinforcement, and they never unanimously
recommended it ; especially his Secretary of State
condemned it as bad policy. 3. The almost uni-
versal feeling of the people at the North, so far as
it could then be divined, was compromising, con-
ciliatory, and thoroughly opposed to any act of
war. Under such circumstances it was rather an
exhibition of independence and courage that Lin-
coln reached the conclusion of relieving the fort at
all, than it was a cause of fault-finding that he did
not come to the conclusion sooner. He could not
know in March how the people were going to feel
after the 13th of April ; in fact, if they had fan-
cied that he was provoking hostilities, their feeling
might not even then have developed as it did.
Finally, he gained his point in forcing the Confed-
eracy into the position of assailant, and there is
every reason to believe that he bought that point
cheaply at the price of the fortress.

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 251

The news of the capture of Sumter had an in-
stant and tremendous effect. The States which
had seceded were thrown into a pleasurable fer-
ment of triumph; the Northern States arose in
fierce wrath; the Middle States, still balancing
dubiously between the two parties, were rent with
passionate discussion. For the moment the North
seemed a unit; there had been Southern sympa-
thizers before, and Southern sympathizers appeared
in considerable numbers later, but for a little
while just now they were very scarce. Douglas at
once called upon the President, and the telegraph
carried to his numerous followers throughout the
land the news that he had pledged himself "to sus-
tain the President in the exercise of all his con-
stitutional functions to preserve the Union, and
maintain the government, and defend the Federal
capital." By this prompt and generous action he
warded off the peril of a divided North. Douglas
is not in quite such good repute with posterity as
he deserves to be; his attitude towards slavery
was bad, but his attitude towards the country was
that of a zealous patriot. His veins were full of
fighting blood, and he was really much more ready
to go to war for the Union than were great num-
bers of Republicans whose names survive in the
strong odor of patriotism. During the presiden-
tial campaign he had been speaking out with de-
fiant courage regardless of personal considerations,
and in this present juncture he did not hesitate an
instant to bring to his successful rival an aid which

252 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

at the time and under the circumstances was inval-
uable.

In every town and village there were now mass-
meetings, ardent speeches, patriotic resolutions, a
confusing stir and tumult of words that would be-
come deeds as fast as definite plans could furnish
opportunity. The difficulty lay in utilizing this
abundant, this exuberant zeal. Historians say
rhetorically that the North sprang to arms ; and it
really would have done so if there had been any
arms to spring to; but muskets were scarce, and
that there were any at all was chiefly due to the
fact that antiquated and unserviceable weapons
had been allowed to accumulate undestroyed.
Moreover, no one knew even the manual of arms ;
and there were no uniforms, or accoutrements, or
camp equipment of any sort. There was, how-
ever, the will which makes the way. Simultane-
ously with the story of Sumter came also the Pres-
ident's Proclamation of April 15. He called for
seventy -five thousand volunteers to serve for three
months, — an insignificant body of men, as it now
seems, and a period of time not sufficient to
change them from civilians into soldiers. Yet for
the work immediately visible the demand seemed
adequate. Moreover, as the law stood, a much
longer term could not have been named,3 and an

1 The Act of 1795 only permitted the use of the militia until
thirty days after the next session of Congress ; this session being
now summoned for July 4, the period of service extended only
until August 3.

TEE BEGINNING OF WAR. 253

apparently disproportionate requisition in point of
numbers might have been of injurious effect; for
nearly every one was cheerfully saying that the
war would be no such very great affair after all.
In his own mind the President may or may not
have forecast the future more accurately than most
others were doing ; but his idea plainly was to ask
no more than was necessary for the visible occa-
sion. He stated that the troops would be used to
"repossess the forts, places, and property which
had been seized from the Union," and that great
care would be taken not to disturb peaceful citi-
zens. Amid all the prophesying and theorizing,
and the fanciful comparisons of the respective
fighting qualities of the Northern and Southern
populations, a sensible remark is attributed to
Lincoln: "We must not forget that the people of
the seceded States, like those of the loyal States,
are American citizens with essentially the same
characteristics and powers. Exceptional advan-
tages on one side are counterbalanced by excep-
tional advantages on the other. We must make
up our minds that man for man the soldier from
the South will be a match for the soldier from the
North, and vice versa." This was good common
sense, seasonably offsetting the prevalent but fool-
ish notion that the Southerners were naturally a
better fighting race than the Northerners. Facts
ultimately sustained Lincoln's just estimate of
equality; for though the North employed far
greater numbers than did the South, it was be-

254 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

cause the North had the burdens of attack and
conquest upon exterior lines of great extent, be-
cause it had to detail large bodies of troops for
mere garrison and quasi-police duty, and because
during the latter part of the war it took miser-
able throngs of bounty -bought foreigners into its
ranks. Man for man, as Lincoln said at the out-
set, the war proved that northern Americans and
southern Americans were closely matched.1

By the same instrument the President summoned
Congress to assemble in extra session on July 4.
It seemed a distant date ; and many thought that
the Executive Department ought not to endeavor
to handle alone all the possible novel developments
of so long a period. But Mr. Lincoln had his
purposes. By July 4 he and circumstances, to-
gether, would have wrought out definite conditions,
which certainly did not exist at present; perhaps
also, like most men who find themselves face to
face with difficult practical affairs, he dreaded the
conclaves of the law-makers; but especially he
wished to give Kentucky a chance to hold a spe-
cial election for choosing members of this Congress,
because the moral and political value of Kentucky
could hardly be overestimated, and the most tact-
ful manoeuvring was necessary to control her.

1 When General Grant took command of the Eastern armies he
said that the country should he cautioned against expecting too
great success, because the loyal and rebel armies were made up
of men of the same race, having about the same experience in
war, and neither able justly to claim any great superiority over
the other in endurance, courage or discipline. Chittenden, Re-
coil, 320.

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 255

The Confederate Cabinet was said to have
greeted Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation with "bursts
of laughter." The governors of Kentucky, North
Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri tele-
graphed that no troops would be furnished by
their respective States, using language clearly
designed to be offensive and menacing. The
Northern States, however, responded promptly and
enthusiastically. Men thronged to enlist. Hun-
dreds of thousands offered themselves where only
75,000 could be accepted. Of the human raw
material there was excess; but discipline and
equipment could not be created by any measure
of mere willingness. Yet there was great need
of dispatch. Both geographically and politically
Washington lay as an advanced outpost in imme-
diate peril. General Scott had been collecting the
few companies within reach; but all, he said on
April 8, "may be too late for this place." By
April 15, however, he believed himself able to
hold the city till reinforcements should arrive.
The total nominal strength of the United States
army, officers and men, was only 17,113, of whom
not two thirds could be counted upon the Union
side, and even these were scattered over a vast
expanse of country, playing police for Indians,
and garrisoning distant posts. Kumors of South-
ern schemes to attack Washington caused wide-
spread alarm; the government had no more defi-
nite information than the people, and all alike
feared that there was to be a race for the capital,

256 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

and that the South, being near and prepared,
would get there first. As matter of fact the South-
ern leaders had laid no military plan for this en-
terprise, and the danger was exaggerated. The
Northerners, however, did not know this, and
made desperate haste.

The first men to arrive came from Philadelphia,
460 troops, as they were called, though they came
"almost entirely without arms." In Massachu-
setts, Governor Andrew, an anti-slavery leader,
enthusiastic, energetic, and of great executive
ability, had been for many months preparing the
militia for precisely this crisis, weeding out the
holiday soldiers and thoroughly equipping his regi-
ments for service in the field. For this he had
been merrily ridiculed by the aristocracy of Bos-
ton during the winter; but inexorable facts now
declared for him and against the local aristocrats.
On April 15 he received the call from Washing-
ton, and immediately sent forth his own summons
through the State. All day on the 16th, amid a
fierce northeasterly storm, the troops poured into
Boston, and by six o'clock on that day three full
regiments were ready to start.1 Three days be-
fore this the governor had asked Secretary Cam-
eron for 2000 rifled muskets from the national
armory at Springfield, in the State. The Secre-
tary refused, and the governor managed to supply
his regiment with the most improved arms 2 with-

1 The third, fourth and sixth. Sehouler, Mass. in the Civil
War, i. 52.

2 Ibid., i. 72.

J ! ) i-iN A . A N I ) R E W

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 257

out aid from the national government. On the
forenoon of the 17th, the Sixth Kegiment started
for Washington. Steamers were ready to take it
to Annapolis; but the Secretary of War, with
astonishing ignorance of facts easily to be known,
ordered it to come through Baltimore. Accord-
ingly the regiment reached Baltimore on the 19th,
the anniversary of the battle of Lexington. Seven
companies were transported in horse-cars from the
northern to the southern station without serious
hindrance ; but then the tracks of the street rail-
way were torn up, and the remaining four com-
panies had to leave the cars and march. A furi-
ous mob of "Plug Uglies" and Secessionists
assailed them with paving-stones, brickbats, and
pistol shots. The mayor and the marshal of the
police force performed fairly their official duty,
but were far from quelling the riot. The troops,
therefore, thrown on their own resources, justi-
fiably fired upon their assailants. The result of
the conflict was that 4 soldiers were killed, and 36
were wounded, and of the rioters, 12 were killed,
and the number of wounded could not be ascer-
tained. The troops reached Washington at five
o'clock in the afternoon, the first armed rescuers
of the capital ; their presence brought a comforting
sense of relief, and they were quartered in the
Senate chamber itself.

What would be the effect of the Proclamation,
of the mustering of troops in the capital, and

25S ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

of the bloodshed at Baltimore upon the slave
States which still remained in the Union was a
problem of immeasurable importance. The Presi-
dent, who had been obliged to take the responsi-
bility of precipitating the crisis in these States,
appreciated more accurately than any one else the
magnitude of the stake involved in their alle-
giance. He watched them with the deepest anxi-
ety, and brought the utmost care and tact of his
nature to the task of influencing them. The geo-
graphical position of Maryland, separating the
District of Columbia from the loyal North, made
it of the first consequence. The situation there,
precarious at best, seemed to be rendered actually
hopeless by what had occurred. A tempest of un-
controllable rage whirled away the people and
prostrated all Union feeling. Mayor Brown ad-
mits that "for some days it looked very much as
if Baltimore had taken her stand decisively with
the South;" and this was putting it mildly, when
the secessionist Marshal Kane was telegraphing:
"Streets red with Maryland blood. Send express
over the mountains of Maryland and Virginia for
the riflemen to come without delay." Governor
Hicks was opposed to secession, but he was shaken
like a reed by this violent blast. Later on this
same April 19, Mayor Brown sent three gentlemen
to President Lincoln, bearing a letter from him-
self, in which he said that it was "not possible for
more soldiers to pass through Baltimore unless
they fight their way at every step." That night

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 259

he caused the northward railroad bridges to be
burned and disabled; and soon afterward the tele-
graph wires were cut.

The President met the emergency with coolness
and straightforward simplicity, abiding firmly by
his main purpose, but conciliatory as to means.
He wrote to the governor and the mayor: "For
the future troops must be brought here, but I
make no point of bringing them through Balti-
more;" he would "march them around Balti-
more," if, as he hoped, General Scott should find
it feasible to do so. In fulfilment of this promise
he ordered a detachment, which had arrived at a
station near Baltimore, to go all the way back to
Philadelphia and come around by water. He only
demurred when the protests were extended to in-
clude the whole "sacred" soil of Maryland, — for
it appeared that the presence of slavery accom-
plished the consecration of soil! His troops, he
said, could neither fly over the State, nor burrow
under it; therefore they must cross it, and the
Marylanders must learn that "there was no piece
of American soil too good to be pressed by the
foot of a loyal soldier on his march to the defense
of the capital of his country." For a while, how-
ever, until conditions in Baltimore changed, East-
ern regiments came by way of Annapolis, though
with difficulty and delay. Yet even upon this
route, conflict was narrowly avoided.

Soon, however, these embarrassments came to
an end, and the President's policy was vindicated

260 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

by its fruits. It had been strictly his own ; he alone
ruled the occasion, and he did so in the face of severe
pressure to do otherwise, some of which came even
from members of his Cabinet. Firmness, reasona-
bleness and patience brought things right ; Lincoln
spoke sensibly to the Marylanders, and gave them
time to consider the situation. Such treatment
started a reaction; Unionism revived and Union-
ists regained courage. Moreover the sure pres-
sure of material considerations was doing its work.
Baltimore, as an isolated secession outpost, found,
even in the short space of a week, that business
was destroyed and that she was suffering every
day financial loss. In a word, by the end of the
month, "the tide had turned." Baltimore, if not
quite a Union city, at least ceased to be secession-
ist. On May 9 Northern troops passed unmo-
lested through it. On May 13 General Butler
with a body of troops took possession of Federal
Hill, which commands the harbor and city, and
fortified it. If the Baltimore question was still
open at that time, this settled it. Early in the
same month the state legislature came together,
Mr. Lincoln refusing to accept the suggestion of
interfering with it. This body was by no means
Unionist, for it "protested against the war as un-
just and unconstitutional, announced a determi-
nation to take no part in its prosecution, and
expressed a desire for the immediate recognition of
the Confederate States." Yet practically it put
a veto on secession by voting that it was inexpedi-

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THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 261

ent to summon a convention ; it called on all good
citizens " to abstain from violent and unlawful inter-
ference with the troops." Thus early in May this
brand, though badly scorched, was saved from the
conflagration ; and its saving was a piece of good
fortune of which the importance cannot be exag-
gerated; for without Maryland Washington could
hardly have been held, and with the national capi-
tal in the hands of the rebels European recog-
nition probably could not have been prevented.
These momentous perils were in the mind of the
administration during those anxious days, and
great indeed was the relief when the ultimate
turn of affairs became assured. For a week offi-
cials in Washington were painfully taught what
it would mean to have Baltimore a rebel city
and Maryland a debatable territory and battle
ground. For a week Mr. Lincoln and his advis-
ers lived almost in a state of siege; they were
utterly cut off from communication with the
North; they could get no news; they could not
learn what was doing for their rescue, nor how
serious were the obstructions in the way of such
efforts ; in place of correct information they heard
only the most alarming rumors. In a word, they
were governing a country to which they really had
no access. The tension of those days was awful;
and it was with infinite comfort that they became
certain that whatever other strain might come,
this one at least could not be repeated. Hence-
forth the loyalty of Maryland, so carefully nur-

262 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

tured, gradually grew in strength to the end.
Many individuals long remained in their hearts
disloyal, and thousands1 joined the Confederate
ranks ; but they had to leave their State in order
to get beneath a secessionist standard, for Mary-
land was distinctly and conclusively in the Union.
The situation, resources and prestige of Vir-
ginia made her next to Maryland in importance
among the doubtful States. Her Unionists were
numerically preponderant; and accordingly the
Convention, which assembled early in January,
was opposed to secession by the overwhelming
majority of 89 to 45. But the Secessionists here
as elsewhere in the South were propagandists, fiery
with enthusiasm and energy, and they controlled
the community although they were outnumbered
by those who held, in a more quiet way, contrary
opinions. When the decisive conflict came it was
short and sharp and carried with a rush. By in-
trigue, by menace, by passionate appeals season-
ably applied with sudden intensity of effort at the
time of the assault upon Sumter, the convention
was induced to pass an ordinance of secession.
Those who could not bring themselves to vote in
the affirmative were told that they might "absent
themselves or be hanged." On the other hand,
there were almost no lines along which the Presi-
dent could project any influence into the State to
encourage the Union sentiment. He sought an

1 Mayor Brown thinks that the estimate of these at 20,000 is
too great. Brown, Baltimore and Nineteenth April, 1861, p. 85.

TEE BEGINNING OF WAR. 263

interview with a political leader, but the gentleman
only sent a substitute, and the colloquy amounted
to nothing. He fell in with the scheme of Gen-
eral Scott concerning Eobert E. Lee, which might
have saved Virginia; but this also miscarried.
General Lee has always been kindly spoken of at
the North, whether deservedly or not is a matter not
to be discussed here. Only a few bare facts and
dates can be given : — April 17, by a vote of 88 to
55, the dragooned Convention passed an "ordinance
to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the
United States," but provided that this action
should for the present be kept secret, and that it
might be annulled by the people at a popular vot-
ing, which should be had upon it on the fourth
Thursday in May. The injunction of secrecy was
immediately broken, and before the polls were to
be opened for the balloting Virginia was held by
the military forces of the Confederacy, so that the
vote was a farce. April 18 Mr. F. P. Blair,
Jr., had an interview in Washington with Lee,
in which he intimated to Lee that the President
and General Scott designed to place him in com-
mand of the army which had just been summoned.1
Accounts of this conversation, otherwise inconsist-
ent, all agree that Lee expressed himself as op-
posed to secession,2 but as unwilling to occupy the

1 N. and H., iv. 98 ; Chittenden, 102 ; Lee's biographer, Childe,
says that " President Lincoln offered him the effective command
of the Union Army," and that Scott " conjured him . . . not to
quit the army." Childe, Lee, 30.

2 Shortly before this time he had written to his son that it was

264 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

position designed for him, because he "could take
no part in an invasion of the Southern States."
April 20 he tendered his resignation of his com-
mission in the army, closing with the words,
" Save in defense of my native State, I never de-
sire again to draw my sword."1 On April 22-23
he was appointed to, and accepted, the command
of the state forces. In so accepting he said: "I
devote myself to the service of my native State, in
whose behalf alone will I ever again draw my
sword."2 April 24 a military league was formed
between Virginia and the Confederate States, and
her forces were placed under the command of
Jefferson Davis; also an invitation was given,
and promptly accepted, to make Eichmond the
Confederate capital. May 16 Virginia formally
entered the Confederacy, and Lee became a general
— the third in rank — in the service of the Con-
federate States, though the secession of his State
was still only inchoate and might never become
complete, since the day set for the popular vote had
not arrived, and it was still a possibility that the
Unionists might find courage to go to the polls.
Thus a rapid succession of events settled it that

"idle to talk of secession," that it was "nothing but revolution"
and " anarchy." N. and H., iv. 99.

1 Childe, Lee, 32 ; Mr. Childe, p. 33, says that Lee's resigna-
tion was accepted on the 20th (the very day on which his letter
was dated!), so that he "ceased to be a member of the United
States Army" before he took command of the state forces. Per
contra, N. and H., iv. 101.

2 Childe, Zee, 34. • r ~

-KT -sj-._a_

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 265

the President could save neither Virginia nor
Robert E. Lee for the Union. Yet the failure
was not entire. The northwestern counties were
strongly Union in their proclivities, and soon fol-
lowed to a good end an evil example; for they in
turn seceded from Virginia, established a state
government, sought admission into the Union,
and became the State of West Virginia.

Next in order of importance came Kentucky.
The Secessionists, using here the tactics so success-
ful in other States, endeavored to drive through
by rush and whirl a formal act of secession. But
the Unionists of Kentucky were of more resolute
and belligerent temper than those of Georgia and
Virginia, and would not submit to be swept away
by a torrent really of less volume than their own.1
Yet in spite of the spirited head thus made by the
loyalists the condition in the State long remained
such as to require the most skilful treatment by
the President; during several critical weeks one
error of judgment, a single imprudence, upon his
part might have proved fatal. For the condition
was anomalous and perplexing, and the conflict of
opinion in the State had finally led to the evolu-
tion of a theory or scheme of so-called "neutral-
ity." A similar notion had been imperfectly de-
veloped in Maryland, when her legislature declared
that she would take no part in a war. The idea

1 Greeley in his Amer. Conflict, i. 349, says that the " open Seces-
sionists were but a handful." This, however, is clearly an exag-
gerated statement.

266 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

was illogical to the point of absurdity, for by it
the "neutral" State would at once stay in the
Union and stand aloof from it. Neutrality really
signified a refusal to perform those obligations
which nevertheless were admitted to be binding,
and it made of the State a defensive barrier for
the South, not to be traversed by Northern troops
on an errand of hostility against Confederate
Secessionists. It was practical "non- coercion "
under a name of fairer sound, and it involved the
inconsequence of declaring that the dissolution of
an indissoluble Union should not be prevented;
it was the proverbial folly of being "for the law
but ag'in the enforcement of it." In the words of
a resolution passed by a public meeting in Louis-
ville: it was the "duty" of Kentucky to maintain
her "independent position," taking sides neither
with the administration nor with the seceding
States, "but with the Union against them both."
Nevertheless, though both logic and geography
made neutrality impracticable, yet at least the de-
sire to be neutral indicated a wavering condition,
and therefore it was Mr. Lincoln's task so to
arrange matters that, when the State should at last
see that it could by no possibility avoid casting its
lot with one side or the other, it should cast it with
the North. For many weeks the two Presidents
played the game for this invaluable stake with all
the tact and skill of which each was master. It
proved to be a repetition of the fable of the sun
and the wind striving to see which could the bet-

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 267

ter make the traveller take off his cloak, and for-
tunately the patience of Mr. Lincoln represented
the warmth of the sun. He gave the Kentuckians
time to learn by observation and the march of
events that neutrality was an impossibility, also to
determine with which side lay the probable ad-
vantages for themselves; also he respected the
borders of the State during its sensitive days,
though in doing so he had to forego some military
advantages of time and position. Deliberation
brought a sound conclusion. Kentucky never
passed an ordinance of secession, but maintained
her representation in Congress and contributed her
quota to the armies ; and these invaluable results
were largely due to this wise policy of the Presi-
dent. Many of her citizens, of course, fought
upon the Southern side, as was the case in all
these debatable Border States where friends and
even families divided against each other, and each
man placed himself according to his own convic-
tions. It may seem, therefore, in view of this
individual independence of action, that the ordi-
nance of secession was a formality which would
not have greatly affected practical conditions; and
many critics of Mr. Lincoln at the time could not
appreciate the value of his "border-state policy,"
and thought that he was making sacrifices and
paying prices wholly against wisdom, and out of
proportion to anything that could be gained
thereby. But he understood the situation and
comparative values correctly. Loyalty to the

268 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

State governed multitudes; preference of the State
over the United States cost the nation vast num-
bers of would-be Unionists in the seceding States,
and in fact made secession possible ; and the same
feeling, erroneous though it was from the Unionist
point of view, yet saved for the Unionist party
very great numbers in these doubtful States which
never in fact seceded. Mr. Davis appreciated
this just as Mr. Lincoln did; both were shrewd
men and were wasting no foolish efforts when they
strove so hard to carry or to prevent formal state
action. They appreciated very well that success
in passing an ordinance would gain for the South
throngs of adherents whose allegiance was, by their
peculiar political creed, due to the winner in this
local contest.

In Tennessee the Unionist majority, as indi-
cated early in February, was overwhelming. Out
of a total vote of less than 92,000, more than
67,000 opposed a State Convention. The moun-
taineers of the eastern region especially were stal-
wart loyalists and later held to their faith through
the severe ordeal of a peculiarly cruel invasion.
But the political value of these scattered settle-
ments was small ; and in the more populous parts
the Secessionists pursued their usual aggressive
and enterprising tactics with success. Ultimately
the governor and the legislature despotically com-
pelled secession. It was not decreed by a popular
vote, not even by a convention, but by votes of
the legislature cast in secret session, a proceeding

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 269

clearly ultra vires of that body. Finally, on June
8, when a popular vote was taken, the State was
in the military control of the Confederacy.

Very similar was the case of North Carolina.
The people of the uplands, like their neighbors of
Tennessee, were Unionists, and in the rest of the
State there was a prevalent Union sentiment; but
the influence of the political leaders, their direct
usurpations of power, and the customary energetic
propagandism, ultimately won. After a conven-
tion had been once voted down by popular vote, a
second effort to bring one together was successfully
made, and an ordinance of secession was passed
on May 20. Arkansas was swept along with the
stream, seceding on May 6, although prior to that
time the votes both for holding a state convention
and afterward in the convention itself had shown
a decided Unionist preponderance. These three
States, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas,
were entirely beyond the reach of the President.
He had absolutely no lines of influence along
which he could work to restrain or to guide them.

Missouri had a career peculiar to herself. In
St. Louis there was a strong Unionist majority,
and especially the numerous German population
was thoroughly anti-slavery and was vigorously
led by F. P. Blair, Jr. But away from her river-
front the State had a sparse population preserving
the rough propensities of frontiersmen; these men
were not unevenly divided between loyalty and
secession and they were an independent, fighting

270 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

set of fellows, each one of whom intended to fol-
low his own fancy. The result was that Missouri
for a long while carried on a little war of her own
within her own borders, on too large a scale to he
called "bushwhacking," and yet with a strong
flavor of that irregular style of conflict. The
President interested himself a good deal in the
early efforts of the loyalists, and amid a puzzling
snarl of angry "personal politics" he tried to ex-
tend to them aid and countenance, though with
imperfect success. It was fortunate that Missouri
was away on the outskirts, for she was the most
vexatious and perplexing part of the country.
Her population had little feeling of state allegiance
or, indeed, of any allegiance at all, but what small
amount there was fell upon the side of the Union ;
for though the governor and a majority of the
legislature declared for secession, yet the State
Convention voted for the Union by a large major-
ity. It is true that a sham convention passed a
sham ordinance, but this had no weight with any
except those who were already Secessionists.

Thus by the close of May, 1861, President
Lincoln looked forth upon a spectacle tolerably
definite at last, and certainly as depressing as
ever met the eyes of a great ruler. Eleven States,
with area, population and resources abundant for
constituting a powerful nation and sustaining an
awful war, were organized in rebellion ; their people
were welded into entire unity of feeling, were en-
thusiastically resolute, and were believed to be

THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 271

exceptionally good fighters. The population of
three Border States was divided between loyalty
and disloyalty. The Northern States, teeming
with men and money, had absolutely no expe-
rience whatsoever to enable them to utilize their
vast resources with the promptitude needful in
the instant emergency. There was a notion, pre-
valent even among themselves, that they were by
temperament not very well fitted for war ; but this
fancy Mr. Lincoln quietly set aside, knowing bet-
ter. He also had confidence in the efficiency of
Northern men in practical affairs of any kind what-
soever, and he had not to tax his patience to see
this confidence vindicated. His appeal for mili-
tary support seemed the marvellous word of a ma-
gician and wrought instant transformation through-
out the vast loyal territory. One half of the male
population began to practice the manual, to drill,
and to study the text-books of military science ; the
remainder put at least equal energy into the pre-
parations for equipment ; every manufacturer in the
land set the proverbial Yankee enterprise and in-
genuity at work in the adaptation of his machinery
to the production of munitions of war and all the
various outfit for troops. Every foundry, every
mill and every shipyard was at once diverted from
its accustomed industries in order to supply mili-
tary demands ; patriotism and profit combined to
stimulate sleepless toil and invention. In a hard-
working community no one had ever before worked
nearly so hard as now. The whole North was in

272 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

a ferment, and every human being strained his
abilities of mind and of body to the utmost in one
serviceable direction or another; the wise and the
foolish, the men of words and the men of deeds,
the projectors of valuable schemes, and the ven-
ders of ridiculous inventions, the applicants for
military commissions and the seekers after the
government's contracts, all hustled and crowded
each other in feverish eagerness to get at work
in the new condition of things. It was going to
take time for all this energy to produce results
— yet not a very long time; the President had
more patience than would be needed, and the
spirit of his people reassured him. If the luke-
warm, compromising temper of the past winter
had caused him to feel any lurking anxious doubts
as to how the crisis would be met, such illusive
mists were now cleared away in a moment before
the sweeping gale of patriotism.

CHAPTEE IX.

A EEAL PRESIDENT, AND NOT A REAL BATTLE.

The capture of Fort Sumter and the call for
troops established one fact. There was to be a
war. The period of speculation was over and the
period of action had begun. The transition meant
much. The talking men of the country had not
appeared to advantage during the few months in
which they had been busy chiefly in giving weak
advice and in concocting prophecies. They now
retired before the men of affairs, who were to do
better. To the Anglo-Saxon temperament it was
a relief to have done with waiting and to begin to
do something. Activity cleared the minds of men,
and gave to each his appropriate duty.

The gravity of the crisis being undeniable, the
people of the North queried, with more anxiety than
ever before, as to what kind of a chief they had
taken to carry them through it. But the question
which all asked none could answer. Mr. Lincoln
had achieved a good reputation as a politician and
a stump speaker. "Whatever a few might think,
this was all that any one knew. The narrow lim-
itations of his actual experience certainly did not
encourage a belief in his probable fitness to en-

274 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

counter duties more varied, pressing, numerous,
novel and difficult than had ever come so suddenly
to confound any ruler within recorded time. Later
on, when it was seen with what rare capacity he
met demands so exacting, many astonished and ex-
citable observers began to cry out that he was in-
spired. This, however, was sheer nonsense. That
the very peculiar requirements of these four years
found a president so well responding to them may
fairly be regarded, by those who so please, as a
specific Providential interference, — a striking one
among many less striking. But, in fact, nothing
in Mr. Lincoln's life requires, for its explanation,
the notion of divine inspiration. His doings, one
and all, were perfectly intelligible as the outcome
of honesty of purpose, strong common sense, clear
reasoning powers, and a singular sagacity in read-
ing the popular mind. Intellectually speaking, a
clear and vigorous thinking capacity was his chief
trait. This sounds commonplace and uninterest-
ing; but a more serviceable qualification could not
have been given him. The truth is that it was
part of the good fortune of the country that the
President was not a brilliant man. Moreover, he
was cool, shrewd, dispassionate, and self-possessed,
and was endowed really in an extraordinary degree
with an intermingling of patience and courage,
whereby he was enabled both to await and to en-
dure results. Above all he was a masterful man ;
not all the time and in small matters, and not
often in an opinionated way; but, from beginning

A REAL PRESIDENT. 275

to end, whenever lie saw fit to be master, master
lie was.1

This last fact, when it became known, answered
another question which people were asking: In
whose hands were the destinies of the North to be ?
In those of Mr. Lincoln ? or in those of the Cabi-
net? or in those of influential advisers, something
like what have been called "favorites" in Europe,
and "kitchen cabinet" in the more homely phrase
of the United States? The early impression was
that Mr. Lincoln did not know a great deal. How
could he? Where and how could he have learned
much? It must be admitted that it was entirely
natural that his advisers, and other influential men
concerned in public affairs should adopt and act
upon the theory that Mr. Lincoln, emerging so
sharply from such a past as his had been, into
such a crisis as was now present, must need a
vast amount of instruction, guidance, suggestion.
Accordingly there were many gentlemen who stood
ready, not to say eager, to supply these fancied
wants; and who could have supplied them very
well, had they existed. Therefore one of the first
things which Mr. Lincoln had to do was, without
antagonizing Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase, to indi-
cate to them that they were to be not only in name
but also in rigid fact his Secretaries, and that he
was in fact as well as by title President. This

1 So said Hon. Geo. W. Julian, somewhat ruefully acknowledg-
ing that Lincoln "was always himself the President." Polit.
BecolU 190.

276 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

delicate business was done so soon as opportunity
offered, not in any disguised way but with plain
simplicity. Mr. Chase never took the disposition
quite pleasantly. He managed his department
with splendid ability, but in the personal relation
of a Cabinet adviser upon the various matters of
governmental policy he was always somewhat un-
comfortable to get along with, inclined to fault-
finding, ever ready with discordant suggestions,
and in time also disturbed by ambition.

Mr. Seward behaved far better. After the
question of supremacy had been settled, though in
a way quite contrary to his anticipation, he frankly
accepted the subordinate position, and discharged
his duties with hearty good-will. Indeed this set-
tlement had already come, before the time which
this narrative has reached; but the people did
not know it ; it was a private matter betwixt the
two men who had been parties to it. Only Mr.
Lincoln and Mr. Seward knew that the Secretary
had suggested his willingness to run the govern-
ment for the President, and that the President
had replied that he intended to run it himself.
It came about in this way: on April 1 Mr.
Seward presented, in writing, "Some thoughts
for the President's consideration." He opened
with the statement, not conciliatory, that "We
are at the end of a month's administration, and
yet without a policy, either domestic or foreign."
He then proceeded to offer suggestions for each.
For the "policy at home" he proposed, as the

I Inn . SAL^J ( )1SI P. CHASE

A REAL PRESIDENT. 211

"ruling idea:" "Change the question before the
public from one upon slavery, or about slavery,
for a question upon Union or Disunion." It was
odd and not complimentary that he should seem
to forget or ignore that precisely this thing had
already been attempted by Mr. Lincoln in his
inaugural address. Also within a few days, as
we all know now, events were to show that the
attempt had been successful. Further comment
upon the domestic policy of Mr. Seward is, there-
fore, needless. But his scheme "For Foreign
Nations " is more startling: —

" I would demand explanations from Spain and
France categorically at once.

"I would seek explanations from Great Britain
and Kussia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico,
and Central America, to rouse a vigorous spirit
of independence on this continent against Euro-
pean intervention.

"And, if satisfactory explanations are not re-
ceived from Spain and France,

"Would convene Congress and declare war
against them.

"But whatever policy we adopt there must be
an energetic prosecution of it.

"For this purpose it must be somebody's busi-
ness to pursue and direct it incessantly.

"Either the President must do it himself, and
be all the while active in it, or

" Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet.

"Once adopted, debates on it must end, and all
agree and abide.

278 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

" It is not in my especial province.

" But I neither seek to evade nor assume respon-
sibility."

Suggestions so wild could not properly consti-
tute material for "consideration" by the Presi-
dent; but much consideration on the part of stu-
dents of those times and men is provoked by the
fact that such counsel emanated from such a source.
The Secretary of State, heretofore the most dis-
tinguished leader in the great Republican move-
ment, who should by merit of actual achievement
have been the Republican candidate for the presi-
dency, and who was expected by a large part of
the country to save an ignorant president from
bad blunders, was advancing a proposition to cre-
ate pretexts whereby to force into existence a for-
eign war upon a basis which was likely to set one
half of the civilized world against the other half.
The purpose for which he was willing to do this
awful thing was : to paralyze for a while domestic
discussions, and to undo and leave to be done anew
by the next generation all that vast work which he
himself, and the President whom he advised, and
the leaders of the great multitude whom they both
represented, had for years been engaged in prose-
cuting with all the might that was in them. But
the explanation is simple: like many another at
that trying moment, the Secretary was smitten
with sudden panic at the condition which had been
brought about so largely by his own efforts. It
was strictly a panic, for it passed away rapidly as
panics do.

A REAL PRESIDENT. 279

The biographer of Mr. Seward may fairly
enough glide lightly over this episode, since it was
nothing more than an episode; but one who writes
of Mr. Lincoln must, in justice, call attention to
this spectacle of the sage statesman from whom,
if from any one, this "green hand," this inex-
perienced President must seek guidance, thus in
deliberate writing pointing out a course which was
ridiculous and impossible, and which, if it had been
possible, would have been an intolerably humiliat-
ing retreat. The anxious people, who thought
that their untried President might, upon the worst
estimate of his own abilities, get on fairly well
by the aid of wise and skilled advisers, would
have been aghast had they known that, inside of
the government, the pending question was: not
whether Mr. Lincoln would accept sound in-
struction, but whether he would have sense to
recognize bad advice, and independence to reject
it. Before Mr. Seward went to bed on that night
of April 1, he was perhaps the only man in the
country who knew the solution of this problem.
But he knew it, for Mr. Lincoln had already
answered his letter. It had not taken the Presi-
dent long! The Secretary's extraordinary offer
to assume the responsibility of pursuing and di-
recting the policy of the government was rejected
within a few hours after it was made; rejected
not offensively, but briefly, clearly, decisively, and
without thanks. Concerning the proposed policies,
domestic and foreign, the President said as little

280 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

as was called for; lie actually did not even refer
to the scheme for inaugurating gratuitously a war
with a large part of Europe, in order for a while
to distract attention from slavery.

To us, to-day, it seems that the President could
not have missed a course so obvious; yet Mr.
Seward, who suggested the absurdity, was a great
statesman. In truth, the President had shown not
only sense but nerve. For the difference between
Seward's past opportunities and experience and
his own was appreciated by him as fully as by any
one. He knew perfectly well that what seemed
the less was controlling what seemed the greater
when he over-ruled his secretary. It took courage
on the part of a thoughtful man to put himself in
such a position. Other solemn reflections also
could not be avoided. Not less interested than
any other citizen in the fate of the nation, he had
also a personal relation to the ultimate event which
was exclusively his own. For he himself might
be called, in a certain sense, the very cause of re-
bellion ; of course the people who had elected him
carried the real responsibility; but he stood as the
token of the difference, the concrete provocation
to the fight. The South had said: Abraham Lin-
coin brings secession. It was frightful to think
that, as he was in fact the signal, so posterity
might mistake him for the very cause, of the rend-
ing of a great nation, the failure of a grand exper-
iment. It might be that this destiny was before
him, for the outcome of this struggle no one could

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A REAL PRESIDENT. 281

foretell; it might be his sad lot to mark the end of
the line of Presidents of the United States. Lin-
coln was not a man who could escape the full
weight of these reflections, and it is to be remem-
bered that all his actions were taken beneath that
weight. It was a strong man, then, who stood up
and said, This is my load and I will carry it; and
who did carry it, when others offered to shift much
of it upon their own shoulders; also who would
not give an hour's thought to a scheme which
promised to lift it away entirely and to leave it for
some other who by and by should come after him.
It is worth while to remember that Mr. Lincoln
was the most advised man, often the worst advised
man, in the annals of mankind. The torrent must
have been terribly confusing! Another instance
deserves mention: shortly before Mr. Seward's
strange proposal, Governor Hicks, distracted at
the tumult in Maryland, had suggested that the
quarrel between North and South should be re-
ferred to Lord Lyons as arbitrator ! It was diffi-
cult to know whether to be amused or resentful
before a proposition at once so silly and so igno-
minious. Yet it came from an important official,
and it was only one instance among thousands.
With war as an actuality, such vagaries as those
of Hicks and Seward came sharply to an end.
People wondered and talked somewhat as to how
long hostilities would last, how much they would
cost, how they would end ; and were not more cor-
rect in these speculations than they had been in

282 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

others. But though the day of gross absurdities
was over, the era of advice endured permanently.
That peculiar national trait whereby every Ameri-
can knows at least as much on every subject what-
soever as is known by any other living man, pro-
duced its full results during the war. Every
clergyman and humanitarian, every village politi-
cian and every city wire-puller, every one who
conned the maps of Virginia and imbibed the mil-
itary wisdom of the newspapers, every merchant
who put his name to a subscription paper, consid-
ered it his privilege and his duty to set the Presi-
dent right upon every question of moral principle,
of politics, of strategy, and of finance. In one
point of view it was not flattering that he should
seem to stand in need of so much instruction; and
this was equally true whether it came bitterly, as
criticism from enemies, or sugar-coated, as advice
from friends. That friends felt obliged to advise
so much was in itself a criticism. Probably, how-
ever, Mr. Lincoln was not troubled by this view,
for he keenly appreciated the idiosyncracies as
well as the better qualities of the people. They,
however, were a long while in understanding him
sufficiently to recognize that there was never a
man whom it was less worth while to advise.

Business crowded upon Mr. Lincoln, and the
variety and novelty of it was without limit. On
April 17 Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation
offering "letters of marque and reprisal" to own-

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A REAL PRESIDENT. 283

ers of private armed vessels. Two days later the
President retorted by proclaiming a blockade of
Confederate ports.1 Of course this could not be
made effective upon the moment. On March 4
the nominal total of vessels in the navy was 90.
Of these, 69 were classed as "available; " but only
42 were actually in commission ; and even of these
many were in Southern harbors, and fell into the
hands of the Confederates ; many more were upon
foreign and distant stations. Indeed, the disper-
sion was so great that it was commonly charged as
having been intentionally arranged by secessionist
officials under Mr. Buchanan. Also at the very
moment when this proclamation was being read
throughout the country, the great navy - yard of
Gosport, at Norfolk, Virginia, "always the fav-
ored depot " of the government, with all its work-
shops and a great store of cannon and other muni-
tions, was passing into the hands of the enemy.
Most of the vessels and some other property were
destroyed by Federals before the seizure was con-
summated; nevertheless, the loss was severe.
Moreover, even had all the vessels of the regular
navy been present, they would have had other du-
ties besides lying off Southern ports. Blockading
squadrons, therefore, had to be improvised, and
orders at once issued for the purchase and equip-
ment of steam vessels from the merchant marine

1 South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Lou-
isiana and Texas, were covered by this proclamation; on April
27, North Carolina and Virginia were added.

284 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

and the coasting service. Fortunately the sum-
mer season was at hand, so that these makeshifts
were serviceable for many months during which
better craft were rapidly got together by alteration
and building. Three thousand miles of coast and
many harbors were included within the blockade
limits, and were distributed into departments un-
der different commanders. Each commander was
instructed to declare his blockade in force as soon
as he felt able to make it tolerably effective, with
the expectation of rapidly improving its efficiency.
The beginning was, therefore, ragged, and was
naturally criticised in a very jealous and hostile
spirit by those foreign nations who suffered by it.
Dangerous disputes threatened to arise, but were
fortunately escaped, and in a surprisingly short
time "Yankee" enterprise made the blockade too
thorough for question.

Amid the first haste and pressure it was in-
geniously suggested that, since the government
claimed jurisdiction over the whole country and
recognized only a rebellion strictly so called,
therefore the President could by proclamation
simply close ports at will. Secretary Welles
favored this course, and in the extra session of
the summer of 1861 Congress passed a bill giving
authority to Mr. Lincoln to pursue it, in his dis-
cretion. Mr. Seward, with better judgment, said
that it might be legal, but would certainly be un-
wise. The position probably could have been suc-
cessfully maintained by lawyers before a bench of

A REAL PRESIDENT. 285

judges ; but to have relied upon it in the teeth of
the commercial interests and unfriendly sentiment
of England and France would have been a fatal
blunder. Happily it was avoided ; and the Presi-
dent had the shrewdness to keep within a line
which shut out technical discussion. Already he
saw that, so far as relations with foreigners were
concerned, the domestic theory of a rebellion,
pure and simple, must be very greatly modified.
In a word, that which began as rebellion soon de-
veloped into civil war; the two were closely akin,
but with some important differences.

Nice points of domestic constitutional law also
arose with the first necessity for action, opening
the broad question as to what course should be
pursued in doubtful cases, and worse still in those
cases where the government could not fairly claim
the benefit of a real doubt. The plain truth was
that, in a condition faintly contemplated in the
Constitution, many things not permitted by the
Constitution must be done to preserve the Consti-
tution. The present crisis had been very scantly
and vaguely provided for by "the fathers." The
instant that action became necessary to save the
Union under the Constitution it was perfectly ob-
vious that the Constitution must be stretched,
transcended, and most liberally interlined, in a
fashion which would furnish annoying arguments
to the disaffected. The President looked over the
situation, and decided, in the proverbial phrase,
to take the bull by the horns ; that which clearly

286 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

ought to be done he would do, law or no law,
doubt or no doubt. He would have faith that the
people would sustain him; and that the courts
and the lawyers, among whose functions it is to
see to it that laws and statutes do not interfere too
seriously with the convenience of the community,
would arrive, in what subtle and roundabout way
they might choose, at the conclusion that whatever
must be done might be done. These learned gen-
tlemen did their duty, and developed the "war
powers" under the Constitution in a manner
equally ingenious, comical, and sensible. But the
fundamental basis was that necessity knows no
law ; every man in the country knew this, but the
well-intentioned denied it, as matter of policy,
while the ill-intentioned made such use of the op-
portunities thus afforded to them as might have
been expected. Among the "war Democrats,"
however, there was at least ostensible liberality.

An early question related to the writ of habeas
corpus. The Maryland legislature was to meet on
April 26, 1861, and was expected to guide the
State in the direction of secession. Many influen-
tial men urged the President to arrest the members
before they could do this. He, however, conceived
such an interference with a state government, in
the present condition of popular feeling, to be im-
politic. "We cannot know in advance," he said,
"that the action will not be lawful and peaceful; "
and he instructed General Scott to watch them,
and in case they should make a movement towards

^1 REAL PRESIDENT. 287

arraying the people against the United States, to
counteract it by "the bombardment of their cities,
and, in the extremest necessity, the suspension of
the writ of habeas corpus" This intimation that
the suspension of the venerated writ was a measure
graver than even bombarding a city, surely indi-
cated sufficient respect for laws and statutes. The
legislators restrained their rebellious ardor and
proved the wisdom of Mr. Lincoln's moderation.
In the autumn, however, the crisis recurred, and
then the arrests seemed the only means of pre-
venting the passage of an ordinance of secession.
Accordingly the order was issued and executed.
Public opinion upheld it, and Governor Hicks
afterward declared his belief that only by this
action had Maryland been saved from destruction.
The privilege of habeas corpus could obviously,
however, be made dangerously serviceable to dis-
affected citizens. Therefore, April 27, the Presi-
dent instructed General Scott: "If at any point
on or in the vicinity of any military line which is
now, or which shall be, used between the city of
Philadelphia and the city of Washington, you find
it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus
for the public safety, you . . . are authorized to
suspend that writ." Several weeks elapsed before
action was taken under this authority. Then, on
May 25, John Merrj^man, recruiting in Maryland
for the Confederate service, was seized and impris-
oned in Fort McHenry. Chief Justice Taney
granted a writ of habeas corpus. General Cad-

288 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

walader replied that he held Merryman upon a
charge of treason, and that he had authority under
the President's letter to suspend the writ. The
Chief Justice thereupon issued against the General
an attachment for contempt, but the marshal was
refused admittance to the fort. The Chief Justice
then filed with the clerk, and also sent to the
President, his written opinion, in which he said:
"I understand that the President not only claims
the right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus at
his discretion, but to delegate that discretionary
power to a military officer;" whereas, according
to the view of his Honor, the power did not lie even
with the President himself, but only with Con-
gress. Warming to the discussion, he used pretty
strong language, to the effect that, if authority
entrusted to other departments could thus "be
usurped by the military power at its discretion,
the people . . . are no longer living under a gov-
ernment of laws ; but every citizen holds life, lib-
erty, and property at the will and pleasure of the
army officer in whose military district he may
happen to be found." It was unfortunate that the
country should hear such phrases launched by the
Chief Justice against the President, or at least
against acts done under orders of the President.
Direct retort was of course impossible, and the dis-
pute was in abeyance for a short time.1 But the

1 For the documents in this case, and also for some of the more
famous professional opinions thereon, see McPherson, Hist, of Re-
bellion, 154 et seq. ; also (of course from the side of the Chief-

A REAL PRESIDENT. 289

predilections of the judicial hero of the Dred Scott
decision were such as to give rise to grave doubts
as to whether or not the Union could be saved by
any process which would not often run counter to
his ideas of the law; therefore in this matter the
President continued to exercise the useful and
probably essential power, though taking care, for
the future, to have somewhat more regard for form.
Thus, on May 10, instead of simply writing a
letter, he issued through the State Department a
proclamation, authorizing the Federal commander
on the Florida coast, "if he shall find it neces-
sary, to suspend there the writ of habeas corpus"
In due time the assembling of Congress gave
Mr. Lincoln the opportunity to present his side of
the case. In his Message he said that arrests, and
suspension of the writ, had been made "very
sparingly;" and that if authority had been
stretched, at least the question was pertinent:
"Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and
the government itself to go to pieces, lest that one
be violated? " He, however, believed that in fact
this question was not presented and that the law
had not been violated. "The provision of the Con-
stitution, that the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in
cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety
may require it, is equivalent to a provision that
such privilege may be suspended when, in cases of

Justice), Tyler's Taney, 420-431 ; and see original draft of the
President's Message on this subject ; N. and H., iv. 176.

290 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

rebellion or invasion, the public safety does re-
quire it." As between Congress and the Execu-
tive, "the Constitution itself is silent as to which
or who is to exercise the power; and as the pro-
vision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency
it cannot be believed that the f ramers of the instru-
ment intended that in every case the danger
should run its course until Congress could be
called together, the very assembling of which might
be prevented, as was intended in this case by the
rebellion."

If it was difficult, it was also undesirable to
confute the President's logic. The necessity for
military arrests and for indefinite detention of the
arrested persons was undeniable. Congress there-
fore recognized the legality of what had been done,
and the power was frequently exercised thereafter,
and to great advantage. Of course mistakes oc-
curred and subordinates made some arrests which
had better have been left unmade; but these bore
only upon discretion in individual cases, not upon
inherent right. The topic, however, was in itself
a tempting one not only for the seriously disaf-
fected, but for the far larger body of the quarrel-
some, who really wanted the government to do its
work, yet maliciously liked to make the process
of doing it just as difficult and as disagreeable
as possible. Later on, when the malcontent class
acquired the organization of a distinct political
body, no other charge against the administration
proved so plausible and so continuously service-

A REAL PRESIDENT. 291

able as this. It invited to florid declamation
profusely illustrated with impressive historical
allusions, and to the free use of vague but grand
and sonorous phrases concerning "usurpation,"
"the subjection of the life, liberty, and property
of every citizen to the mere will of a military
commander," and other like terrors. Unfortu-
nately men much more deserving of respect than
the Copperheads, men of sound loyalty and high
ability, but of anxious and conservative tempera-
ment, were led by their fears to criticise severely
arrests of men who were as dangerous to the
government as if they had been soldiers of the
Confederacy.

May 3, 1861, by which time military exigencies
had become better understood, Mr. Lincoln called
"into the service of the United States 42,034
volunteers," and directed that the regular army
should be increased by an aggregate of 22,714
officers and enlisted men. More suggestive than
the mere increase was the fact that the volunteers
were now required "to serve for a period of three
years, unless sooner discharged." The opinion of
the government as to the magnitude of the task in
hand was thus for the first time conveyed to the
people. They received it seriously and without
faltering.

July 4, 1861, the Thirty-seventh Congress met
in extra session, and the soundness of the Presi-
dent's judgment in setting a day which had at first
been condemned as too distant was proved. In

292 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

the interval, nothing had been lost which could
have been saved by the sitting of Congress ; while,
on the other hand, the members had had the great
advantage of having time to think soberly con-
cerning the business before them, and to learn the
temper and wishes of their constituents.

Mr. Lincoln took great pains with his Message,
which he felt to be a very important document.
It was his purpose to say simply what events had
occurred, what questions had been opened, and
what necessities had arisen ; to display the situa-
tion and to state facts fairly and fully, but not
apparently to argue the case of the North. Yet it
was essential for him so to do this that no doubt
could be left as to where the right lay. This
peculiar process of argument by statement had
constituted his special strength at the bar, and he
now gave an excellent instance of it. He briefly
sketched the condition of public affairs at the time
when he assumed the government; he told the
story of Sumter, and of the peculiar process
whereby Virginia had been linked to the Confed-
eracy. With a tinge of irony he remarked that
whether the sudden change of feeling among the
members of the Virginian Convention was " wrought
by their great approval of the assault upon Sum-
ter, or their great resentment at the government's
resistance to that assault is not definitely known."

He explained the effect of the neutrality theory
of the Border States. "This," he said, "would
be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it

A REAL PRESIDENT. 293

would be the building of an impassable wall along
the line of separation, — and yet not quite an im-
passable one, for under the guise of neutrality, it
would tie the hands of the Union men, and freely
pass supplies to the insurrectionists. ... At a
stroke it would take all the trouble off the hands
of secession, except what proceeds from the exter-
nal blockade." It would give to the disunionists
"disunion, without a struggle of their own."

Of the blockade and the calls for troops, he
said: "These measures, whether strictly legal or
not, were ventured upon under what appeared to
be a popular demand and a public necessity, trust-
ing then, as now, that Congress would ratify
them." At the same time he stated the matter of
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, which
has been already referred to.

Speaking of the doctrine that secession was
lawful under the Constitution, and that it was not
rebellion, he made plain the genuine significance
of the issue thus raised: " It presents . . . the
question whether a Constitutional Eepublic or
Democracy, a government of the people by the
same people, can or cannot maintain its territorial
integrity against its own domestic foes. It pre-
sents the question whether discontented individ-
uals, too few in numbers to control the administra-
tion according to the organic law in any case, can
always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or
any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any
pretense, break up their government, and thus

294 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

practically put an end to free government upon
the earth. It forces us to ask: Is there in all
Republics this inherent fatal weakness? Must a
government of necessity be too strong for the lib-
erties of its own people, or too weak to maintain
its own existence? " The Constitution of the Con-
federacy was a paraphrase with convenient adap-
tations of the Constitution of the United States.
A significant one of these adaptations was the
striking out of the first three words, "We, the
people," and the substitution of the words: "We,
the deputies of the sovereign and independent
States." "Why," said Mr. Lincoln, "why this
deliberate pressing out of view the rights of men
and the authority of the people? This is essen-
tially a people's contest. On the side of the
Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the
world that form and substance of government
whose leading object is to elevate the condition of
men ... to afford to all an unfettered start and
a fair chance in the race of life. . . . This is the
leading object of the government for whose exist-
ence we contend. I am most happy to believe that
the plain people understand and appreciate this."

Many persons, not gifted with the power of
thinking clearly, were disturbed at what seemed to
them a purpose to "invade" and to "subjugate"
sovereign States, — as though a government could
invade its own country or subjugate its own sub-
jects! These phrases, he said, were producing
"uneasiness in the minds of candid men" as to

A REAL PRESIDENT. 295

what would be the course of the government toward
the Southern States after the suppression of the
rebellion. The President assured them that he
had no expectation of changing the views set forth
in his inaugural address; that he desired "to pre-
serve the government, that it may be administered
for all as it was administered by the men who
made it. Loyal citizens everywhere have a right
to expect this, . . . and the government has no
right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived
that in giving it there is any coercion, any con-
quest, or any subjugation."

In closing he said that it was with the deepest
regret that he had used the war power; but "in
defense of the government, forced upon him, he
could but perform this duty or surrender the exist-
ence of the government." Compromise would
have been useless, for "no popular government can
long survive a marked precedent that those who
carry an election can only save the government
from immediate destruction by giving up the main
point upon which the people gave the election."
To those who would have had him compromise he
explained that only the people themselves, not
their servants, can safely reverse their own delib-
erate decisions. He had no power to agree to
divide the country which he had the duty to gov-
ern. "As a private citizen the Executive could
not have consented that these institutions shall
perish; much less could he, in betrayal of so vast
and so sacred a trust as these free people have

296 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

confided to him. He felt that he had no moral
right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of
his own life in what might follow."

The only direct request made in the Message
was that, to make "this contest a short and decis-
ive one," Congress would "place at the control of
the government for the work at least 400,000 men,
and $400,000,000. That number of men is about
one tenth of those of proper ages within the re-
gions where apparently all are willing to engage,
and the sum is less than a twenty -third part of the
money value owned by the men who seem ready
to devote the whole."

The Message was well received by the people, as
it deserved to be.

The proceedings of Congress can only be re-
ferred to with brevity. Yet a mere recital of the
names of the more noteworthy members of the
Senate and the House must be intruded, if merely
for the flavor of reminiscence which it will bring
to readers who recall those times. In the Senate,
upon the Kepublican side, there were Lyman
Trumbull from Illinois, James Harlan and James
W. Grimes from Iowa, William P. Fessenden
from Maine, Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson
from Massachusetts, Zachariah Chandler from
Michigan, John P. Hale from New Hampshire,
Benjamin F. Wade from Ohio, and John Sher-
man, who was elected to fill the vacancy created
by the appointment of Salmon P. Chase to the
Treasury Department, David Wilmot from Penn-

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A REAL PRESIDENT. 297

sylvania, filling the place of Simon Cameron,
Henry B. Anthony from Khode Island, Andrew
Johnson from Tennessee, Jacob Collamer from
Vermont, and James R. Doolittle from Wisconsin.
On the Democratic side, there were: James A.
McDougall of California, James A. Bayard and
William Saulsbury of Delaware, Jesse D. Bright
of Indiana, who was expelled February 5, 1862,
John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, who a little
later openly joined the Secessionists, and was for-
mally expelled December 4, 1861; he was suc-
ceeded by Garrett Davis, an "American or Old
Line Whig," by which name he and two senators
from Maryland preferred to be described; James
W. Nesmith of Oregon. Lane and Pomeroy, the
first Senators from the free State of Kansas, were
seated. In the House Galusha A. Grow, of Penn-
sylvania, who had lately knocked down Mr. Keith
of South Carolina in a fisticuff encounter on the
floor of the Chamber, was chosen Speaker, over
Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri. Thaddeus
Stevens of Pennsylvania was the most prominent
man in the body. Among many familiar names
in running down the list the eye lights upon
James E. English of Connecticut; E. B. Wash-
burne, Isaac N. Arnold and Owen Lovejoy of Il-
linois; Julian, Voorhees, and Schuyler Colfax of
Indiana; Crittenden of Kentucky; Roscoe Conk-
ling, Reuben E. Fenton, and Erastus Corning of
New York; George H. Pendleton, Vallandigham,
Ashley, Shellabarger, and S. S. Cox of Ohio; Co-

298 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

vode of Pennsylvania; Maynard of Tennessee.
The members came together in very good temper ;
and the great preponderance of Republicans se-
cured dispatch in the conduct of business; for the
cliques which soon produced intestine discomfort
in that dominant party were not yet developed.
No ordinary legislation was entered upon ; but in
twenty-nine working days seventy-six public Acts
were passed, of which all but four bore directly
upon the extraordinary emergency. The demands
of the President were met, with additions: 500,000
men and 1500,000,000 were voted; $207,000,000
were appropriated to the army, and $56,000,000
to the navy. August 6 Congress adjourned.

The law-makers were treated, during their ses-
sion, to what was regarded, in the inexperience of
those days, as a spectacle of real war. During a
couple of months past large bodies of men had
been gathering together, living in tents, shoulder-
ing guns and taking the name of armies. General
Butler was in command at Fortress Monroe, and
was faced by Colonel Magruder, who held the
peninsula between the York and the James rivers.
Early in June the lieutenants of these two com-
manders performed the comical fiasco of the "bat-
tle " of Big Bethel. In this skirmish the Federal
regiments fired into each other, and then retreated,
while the Confederates withdrew; but in language
of absurd extravagance the Confederate colonel
reported that he had won a great victory, and

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A REAL PRESIDENT. 299

Northern men flushed beneath the ridicule in-
curred by the blunder of their troops.

A smaller affair at Vienna was more ridiculous ;
several hundred soldiers, aboard a train of cars,
started upon a reconnoissance, as if it had been a
picnic. The Confederates fired upon them with a
couple of small cannon, and they hastily took to
the woods. When they got home they talked
wisely about "masked batteries." But the shrewd-
ness and humor of the people were not thus turned
aside, and the "masked battery" long made the
point of many a bitter jest.

Up the river, Harper's Ferry was held by
"Stonewall" Jackson, who was soon succeeded by
J. E. Johnston. Confronting and watching this
force was General Patterson, at Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, with a body of men rapidly growing
to considerable numbers by the daily coming of
recruits. Not very far away, southeastward, the
main body of the Confederate army, under Beaure-
gard, lay at Manassas, and the main body of the
Federal army, under McDowell, was encamped
along the Potomac. On May 23 the Northern ad-
vance crossed that river, took possession of Arling-
ton Heights and of Alexandria, and began work
upon permanent defensive intrenchments in front
of the capital.

The people of the North knew nothing about
war or armies. Wild with enthusiasm and excite-
ment, they cheered the departing regiments, which,
as they vaguely and eagerly fancied, were to begin

300 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

fighting at once. Yet it was true that no one
would stake his money on a "football team"
which should go into a game trained in a time so
short as that which had been allowed for bringing
into condition for the manoeuvres and battle-fields
of a campaign an army of thirty or forty thousand
men, with staff and commissariat, and arms of in-
fantry, cavalry, and artillery, altogether constitut-
ing an organization vast, difficult, and complex in
the highest degree of human cooperation. Never-
theless "On to Kichmond! " rolled up the imperi-
ous cry from every part of the North. The gov-
ernment, either sharing in this madness, or feeling
that it must be yielded to, passed the word to the
commander, and McDowell very reluctantly obeyed
orders and started with his army in that direction,
— not, however, with any real hope of reaching
this nominal objective; for he was an intelligent
man and a good soldier, and was perfectly aware of
the unfitness of his army. But when, protesting,
he suggested that his troops were "green," he was
told to remember that the Southern troops were of
the same tint; for, in a word, the North was bound
to have a fight, and would by no means endure
that the three months' men should come home with-
out doing something more positive than merely
preventing the capture of Washington.

On July 16, therefore, McDowell began his ad-
vance, having with him about 35,000 men, and by
the 19th he was at the stream of Bull Kun, behind
which the Confederates lay. He planned his bat-

A REAL PRESIDENT. 301

tie skilfully, and began his attack on the morning
of the 21st. On the other hand, Beauregard was
at the double disadvantage of misapprehending
his opponent's purpose, and of failing to get his
orders conveyed to his lieutenants until the fight
was far advanced. The result was that at the be-
ginning of the afternoon the Federals had almost
won a victory which they fully deserved. That
they did not finally secure it was due to the ineffi-
ciency of General Patterson. This general had
crossed the Potomac a few days before and had
been instructed to watch Johnston, who had drawn
back near Winchester, and either to prevent him
from moving his force from the Shenandoah Val-
ley to Manassas, or, failing this, to keep close to
him and unite with McDowell. But Patterson
neither detained nor followed his opponent. On
July 18 Beauregard telegraphed to Johnston: "If
you wish to help me, now is the time." If Patter-
son wished to help McDowell, then, also, was the
time. The Southern general seized his opportun-
ity, and the Northern general let his opportunity
go. Johnston, uninterrupted and unfollowed by
Patterson, brought his troops in from Manassas
Junction upon the right wing of the Federals at
the very moment and crisis when the battle was
actually in the process of going in their favor.
Directly all was changed. Older troops would not
have stood, and these untried ones were defeated
as soon as they were attacked. Speedily retreat
became rout, and rout became panic. At a great

302 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

speed the frightened soldiers, resolved into a mere
disorganized mob of individuals, made their way-
back to the camps on the Potomac ; many thought
Washington safer, and some did not stop short of
their distant Northern homes.

The Southerners, who had been on the point of
running away when the Northerners anticipated
them in so doing, now triumphed immoderately,
and uttered boastings magniloquent enough for
Homeric heroes. Yet they were, as General John-
ston said, " almost as much disorganized by victory
as were the Federals by defeat." Many of them
also hastened to their homes, spreading everywhere
the cheering tidings that the war was over and the
South had won.

In point of fact, it was a stage of the war when
defeat was more wholesome than victory. Fortu-
nately, too, the North was not even momentarily
discouraged. The people had sense enough to see
that what had happened was precisely what should
have been expected. A little humiliated at their
own folly, about as much vexed with themselves as
angry with their enemies, they turned to their
work in a new spirit. Persistence displaced excite-
ment, as three years' men replaced three months'
men. The people settled down to a long, hard
task. Besides this, they had now some idea of
what was necessary to be done in order to succeed
in that task. Invaluable lessons had been learned,
and no lives which were lost in the war bore fruit
of greater usefulness than did those which seemed
to have been foolishly thrown away at Bull Run.

CHAPTER X.

THE FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA.

On the day after the battle of Bull Kun General
George B. McClellan was summoned to Washing-
ton, where he arrived on July 26. On the 25th
he had been assigned to the command of the army
of the Potomac. By all the light which President
Lincoln had at the time of making this appoint-
ment, it seemed the best that was possible; and in
fact it was so, in view of the immediate sphere of
usefulness of a commanding general in Virginia.
McClellan was thirty -four years old, of vigorous
physique and fine address. After his graduation
at West Point, in 1846, he was attached to the
Engineer Corps; he served through the Mexican
War and, for merit, received a captaincy. In
1855 he was sent by Jefferson Davis, then Secre-
tary of War, to Europe to study the organizing
and handling of armies in active service ; and he
was for a while at the British headquarters during
the siege of Sebastopol, observing their system in
operation. In January, 1857, he resigned from
the army; but with the first threatenings of the
civil war he made ready to play an active part.
April 23, 1861, he was appointed by the governor

304 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

of Ohio a major-general, with command of all the
state forces. May 13, by an order from the
national government, he took command of the De-
partment of the Ohio, in which shortly afterward
Western Virginia was included. He found the
sturdy mountaineers of this inaccessible region for
the most part loyalists, but overawed by rebel
troops, and toward the close of May, upon his own
sole responsibility, he inaugurated a campaign for
their relief. In this he had the good fortune to
be entirely successful. By some small engage-
ments he cleared the country of armed Secessionists
and returned it to the Union; and in so doing he
showed energy and good tactical ability. These
achievements, which later in the war would have
seemed inconsiderable, now led to confidence and
promotion.

In his new and exalted position McClellan be-
came commander of a great number of men, but
not of a great army. The agglomeration of civil-
ians, who had run away from Manassas under the
impression that they had fought and lost a real
battle, was utterly disorganized and demoralized.
Some had already reached the sweet safety of the
villages of the North ; others were lounging in the
streets of Washington and swelling the receipts of
its numerous bar-rooms. The majority, it is true,
were in camp across the Potomac, but in no con-
dition to render service. All, having been enlisted
for three months, now had only a trifling remnant
of so-called military life before them, in which it

L^/M^

D.Appleton^cCo.

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 305

seemed to many hardly worth while to run risks.
The new call for volunteers for three years had
just gone forth, and though troops began to arrive
under it with surprising promptitude and many
three months' men reenlisted, yet a long time had
to elapse before the new levies were all on hand.
Thus betwixt departing and coming hosts Mc-
Clellan's duty was not to use an army, but to
create one.

The task looked immeasurable, but there was
a fortunate fitness for it upon both sides. The
men who in this awful crisis were answering the
summons of President Lincoln constituted a raw
material of a kind such as never poured into any
camp save possibly into that of Cromwell. For
the most part they were courageous, intelligent,
self-respecting citizens, who were under the noble
compulsion of conscience and patriotism in leav-
ing reputable and prosperous callings for a mili-
tary career. The moral, mental and physical
average of such a body of men was a long way
above that of professional armies, and insured
readiness in acquiring their new calling. But ad-
mirable as were the latent possibilities, and apt
as each individual might be, these multitudes ar-
rived wholly uninstructed ; few had even so much
as seen a real soldier, none had any notion at all
of what military discipline was, or how to handle
arms, or to manoeuvre, or to take care of their
health. Nor could they easily get instruction
in these things; for officers knew no more than

306 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

privates; indeed, for that matter, one of the
great difficulties at first encountered lay in the
large proportion of utterly unfit men who had suc-
ceeded in getting commissions, and who had to be
toilfully eliminated.

That which was to be done, McClellan was well
able to do. He had a passion for organization,
and fine capacity for work; he showed tact and
skill in dealing with subordinates ; he had a thor-
ough knowledge and a high ideal of what an army
should be. He seemed the Genius of Order as he
educated and arranged the chaotic gathering of
human beings, who came before him to be trans-
muted from farmers, merchants, clerks, shop-keep-
ers and what not into soldiers of all arms and into
leaders of soldiers. To that host in chrysalis he
was what each skilful drill-master is to his awk-
ward squad. Under his influence privates learned
how to obey and officers how to command; each
individual merged the sense of individuality in
that of homogeneousness and cohesion, until the
original loose association of units became one
grand unit endowed with the solidarity and ma-
chine-like quality of an efficient army. Patient
labor produced a result so excellent that General
Meade said long afterward : " Had there been no
McClellan there could have been no Grant, for
the army made no essential improvement under
any of his successors."

That the formation of this great complex ma-
chine was indispensable, and that it would take

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 307

much time, were facts which the disaster at Bull
Kun had compelled both the administration and
the people to appreciate moderately well. Accord-
ingly they resolutely set themselves to be patient.
The cry of "On to Richmond" no longer sounded
through the land, and the restraint imposed by the
excited masses upon their own ardor was the
strongest evidence of their profound earnestness.
In a steady stream they poured men and material
into the camps in Virginia, and they heard with
satisfaction of the advance of the levies in dis-
cipline and soldierly efficiency. For a while the
scene was pleasant and without danger. "It was,"
says Arnold, describing that of which he had been
an eye-witness, "the era of brilliant reviews and
magnificent military displays, of parades, festive
parties and junketings." Members of Congress
found excursions to the camps attractive for them-
selves and their visitors. Glancing arms, new
uniforms, drill, and music constituted a fine show.
Thus the rest of the summer passed away, and
autumn came and was passing too. Then here
and there signs of impatience began again to be
manifested. It was observed with discontent that
the glorious days of the Indian Summer, the per-
fect season for military operations, were gliding
by as tranquilly as if there were not a great war
on hand, and still the citizen at home read each
morning in his newspaper the stereotyped bulletin,
"All quiet on the Potomac;" the phrase passed
into a byword and a sneer. By this time, too,

308 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

to a nation which had not European standards of
excellence, the army seemed to have reached a high
state of efficiency, and to be abundantly able to
take the field. Why did not its commander move?
Amid all the drilling and band-playing the troops
had been doing hard work; a chain of strong for-
tifications scientifically constructed had been com-
pleted around the capital and rendered it easy of
defense. It could be left in safety. Why, then,
was it not left? Why did the troops still linger?
For a moment this monotony was interrupted
by the ill-conducted engagement at Ball's Bluff.
On October 21 nearly 2000 troops were sent
across the Potomac by the local commander, with
the foolish expectation of achieving something
brilliant.1 The actual result was that they were
corralled in an open field ; in their rear the precipi-
tous bank dropped sharply to the river, upon which
floated only the two or three little boats which had
ferried them across in small parties ; in front and
flank from the shelter of thick woods an outnum-
bering force of rebels poured a steady fire upon
them. They were in a cruel snare, and suffered
terribly in killed and drowned, wounded and cap-
tured. The affair was, and the country at once
saw that it was, a gross blunder. The responsi-
bility lay upon General Stone and Colonel Baker.
Stone, a military man by education, deserved cen-

1 A reeonnoissance or " slight demonstration " ordered for the
day before by McClellan had been completed, and is not to be
confounded with this movement, for which he was not responsible.

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 309

sure, but he was treated in a manner so cruel, so
unjust and so disproportionate to his deserts that
his error has been condoned in sympathy for his
wrongs. The injustice was chargeable chiefly to
Stanton, in part to the Committee on the Conduct
of the War. Apparently Mr. Lincoln desired to
know as little as possible about a wrong which he
could not set right without injury to the public in-
terests. He said to Stanton concerning the arrest :
" I suppose you have good reasons for it, and hav-
ing good reasons I am glad I knew nothing of it
until it was done." To General Stone himself he
said that, if he should tell all he knew about it, he
should not tell much. Colonel Baker, Senator
from Oregon, a personal friend of the President,
a brilliant orator, and a man beloved and admired
by all who knew him, was a favorable specimen of
the great body of new civilian officers. While
brimming over with gallantry and enthusiasm, he
was entirely ignorant of the military art. In the
conduct of this enterprise a considerable discretion
had been reposed in him, and he had, as was alto-
gether natural, failed in everything except courage.
But as he paid with his life on the battle-field the
penalty of his daring and his inexperience, he
was thought of only with tenderness and regret.

This skirmish illustrated the scant trust which
could yet be reposed in the skill and judgment of
subordinate officers. The men behaved with en-
couraging spirit and constancy under severe trial.
But could a commander venture upon a campaign

310 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

with brigadier-generals and colonels so unfit to
assume responsibility?

Nevertheless impatience hardly received a mo-
mentary check from this lesson. With some in-
consistency people placed unlimited confidence in
McClellan's capacity to beat the enemy, but no
confidence at all in his judgment as to the feasi-
bility of a forward movement. The grumbling
did not, however, indicate that faith in him was
shaken, for just now he was given promotion by
Mr. Lincoln, and it met with general approval.
For some time past it had been a cause of discom-
fort that he did not get on altogether smoothly
with General Scott; the elder was irascible and
jealous, the younger certainly not submissive. At
last, on October 31, the old veteran regretfully
but quite wisely availed himself of his right to
be placed upon the retired list, and immediately,
November 1, General McClellan succeeded him
in the distinguished position of Commander-in-
Chief (under the President) of all the armies of
the United States. On the same day Mr. Lincoln
courteously hastened out to headquarters to make
in person congratulations which were unquestion-
ably as sincere as they were generous. Every one
felt that a magnificent opportunity was given to a
favorite general. But unfortunately among all his
admirers there was not one who believed in him
quite so fully as he believed in himself; he lost all
sense of perspective and proportion, and felt upon
a pinnacle from which he could look down even

FIRST ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 311

on a president.1 Being in this masterful temper,
he haughtily disregarded the growing demand for
an advance. On the other hand the politicians,
always eager to minister to the gratification of the
people, began to be importunate ; they harried the
President, and went out to camp to prick their
civilian spurs into the General himself. But Mc-
Clellan had a soldierly contempt for such inter-
meddling in matters military, and was wholly un-
impressible. When Senator Wade said that an
unsuccessful battle was preferable to delay, for
that a defeat would easily be repaired by swarm-
ing recruits, the General tartly replied that he
preferred a few recruits before a victory to a great
many after a defeat. But however cleverly and
fairly the military man might counter upon the
politician, there was no doubt that discontent was
developing dangerously. The people had consci-
entiously intended to do their part fully, and a
large proportion of them now sincerely believed
that they had done it. They knew that they had
been lavish of men, money, and supplies ; and they
thought that they had been not less liberal of
time; wherefore they rebelled against the contrary
opinion of the general, whose ideal of a trust-
worthy army had by no means been reached, and
who, being of a stubborn temperament, would not
stir till it had been.

It is difficult to satisfy one's self of the real fit-

1 For example, see his Own Story, 82 ; but, unfortunately, one
may refer to that hook passim for evidence of the statement.

312 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

ness of the army to move at or about this time, —
that is to say, in or near the month of November,
1861, — for the evidence is mixed and conflicting.
The Committee on the Conduct of the War as-
serted that "the Army of the Potomac was well
armed and equipped and had reached a high state
of discipline by the last of September or first of
October;" but the Committee was not composed
of experts. Less florid commendation is given by
the Comte de Paris, of date October 15. Mc-
Clellan himself said: "It certainly was not till
late in November that the army was in any con-
dition to move, nor even then were they capable
of assaulting intrenched positions." At that time
winter was at hand, and advance was said to be
impracticable. That these statements were as fa-
vorable as possible seems probable ; for it is famil-
iar knowledge that the call for these troops did
not issue until July, that at the close of November
the recruits were still continuing "to pour in, to
be assigned and equipped and instructed;"1 that
many came unarmed or with useless weapons ; and
that these "civilians, suddenly called to arms as
soldiers and officers, did not take kindly to the
subordination and restraints of the camp." 2 Now
McClellan's temperament did not lead him to run
risks in the effort to force achievements with
means of dubious adequacy. His purpose was to
create a machine perfect in every part, sure and
irresistible in operation, and then to set it in mo-
1 N. and H., iv. 469. 2 Ibid. v. 140.

FIRST ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 313

tion with a certainty of success. He wrote to Lin-
coln: "I have ever regarded our true policy as
being that of fully preparing ourselves, and then
seeking for the most decisive results."1 Under
favoring circumstances this plan might have been
the best. But circumstances were not favoring.
Neither he nor the government itself, nor indeed
both together, could afford long or far to disre-
gard popular feeling. Before the close of Novem-
ber that popular feeling was such that the people
would have endured without flinching the discour-
agement of a defeat, but would not endure the
severe tax of inaction, and from this time forth
their impatience gathered volume until it became
a controlling element in the situation. Them-
selves intending to be reasonable, they grew more
and more convinced that McClellan was unreason-
able. General and people confronted each other:
the North would fight, at the risk of defeat; Mc-
Clellan would not fight, because he was not sure to
win. Any one who comprehended the conditions,
the institutions of the country, the character of the
nation, especially its temper concerning the pres-
ent conflict, also the necessities beneath which
that conflict must be waged, if it was to be waged
at all, would have seen that the people must be
deferred to. The question was not whether they
were right or wrong. Assuming them to be
wrong, it would still be a mistake to withstand
them beyond a certain point. If yielding to them

l Letter to Lincoln, Feb. 3, 1862.

314 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

should result in disastrous consequences, they must
be called upon to rally, and could be trusted to do
so, instructed but undismayed by their experience.
All this McClellan utterly failed to appreciate,
thereby leading Mr. Swinton very justly to remark
that he was lacking in "the statesmanlike qualities
that enter into the composition of a great gen-
eral."1

On the other hand, no man ever lived more
capable than Mr. Lincoln of precisely appreciating
the present facts, or more sure to avoid those pecu-
liar blunders which entrapped the military com-
mander. He was very loyal in living up to his
pledge to give the general full support, and by his
conduct during many months to come he proved
his readiness to abide to the last possible point.
He knew, however, with unerring accuracy just
where that last point lay, and he saw with dis-
quietude that it was being approached too rapidly.
He was getting sufficient knowledge of McClellan' s
character to see that the day was not distant when
he must interfere. Meantime he kept his sensi-
tive finger upon the popular pulse, as an expert
physician watches a patient in a fever. With the
growth of the impatience his anxiety grew, for
the people's war would not be successfully fought
by a dissatisfied people. Repeatedly he tested the

1 Army of Potomac, 97. Swinton says : " He should have made
the lightest possible draft on the indulgence of the people." Ibid.,
69. General Webb says : " He drew too heavily upon the faith of
the public." The Peninsula, 12.

-Engi'bjr.A.HF.itdaT.*

Bvt. Maj. Gen ALEX. S.WEBB U. S.A.

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 315

situation in the hope that a movement could be
forced without undue imprudence; but he was
always met by objections from McClellan. In
weighing the Northern and the Southern armies
against each other, the general perhaps underval-
ued his own resources and certainly overvalued
those of his opponent. He believed that the Con-
federate " discipline and drill were far better than
our own;" wherein he was probably in error, for
General Lee admitted that, while the Southerners
would always fight well, they were refractory under
discipline. Moreover, they were at this time very
ill provided with equipment and transportation.
Also McClellan said that the Southern army had
thrown up intrenchments at Manassas and Centre-
ville, and therefore the "problem was to attack
victorious and finely drilled troops in intrench-
ment." But the most discouraging and inexplic-
able assertion, which he emphatically reiterated,
concerned the relative numerical strength. He
not only declared that he himself could not put
into the field the numbers shown by the official
returns to be with him, but also he exaggerated
the Southern numbers till he became extravagant
to the point of absurdity. So it had been from
the outset, and so it continued to be to the time
when he was at last relieved of his command.
Thus, on August 15, he conceived himself to be
"in a terrible place; the enemy have three or four
times my force." September 9 he imagined John-
ston to have 130,000 men, against his own 85,000;

316 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

and he argued that Johnston could move upon
Baltimore a column 100,000 strong, which he
could meet with only 60,000 or 70,000. Later
in October he marked the Confederates up to
150,000. He estimated his own requirement at
a "total effective force " of 208,000 men, which
implied "an aggregate, present and absent, of
about 240,000 men." Of these he designed
150,000 as a "column of active operations;" the
rest were for garrisons and guards. He said that
in fact he had a gross aggregate of 168,318, and
the "force present for duty was 147,695." Since
the garrisons and the guards were a fixed number,
the reduction fell wholly upon the movable col-
umn, and reduced "the number disposable for an
advance to 76,285." Thus he made himself out
to be fatally over-matched. But he was exces-
sively in error. In the autumn Johnston's effec-
tive force was only 41,000 men, and on December
1, 1861, it was 47,000.!

Such comparisons, advanced with positiveness
by the highest authority, puzzled Mr. Lincoln.
They seemed very strange, yet he could not dis-
prove them, and was therefore obliged to face the
perplexing choice which was mercilessly set before
him: "either to go into winter quarters, or to as-
sume the offensive with forces greatly inferior in

1 The Southern generals had a similar propensity to over-esti-
mate the opposing- force; e. g., Johnston's Narrative, 108, where
he puts the Northern force at 140,000, when in fact it was 58,000 ;
and on p. 112 his statement is even worse.

FIRST ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 317

number" to what was "desirable and necessary."
"If political considerations render the first course
unadvisable, the second alone remains." The
general's most cheering admission was that, by-
stripping all other armies down to the lowest
numbers absolutely necessary for a strict defensive,
and by concentrating all the forces of the nation
and all the attention of the government upon "the
vital point " in Virginia, it might yet be possible
for this "main army, whose destiny it [was] to
decide the controversy, ... to move with a rea-
sonable prospect of success before the winter is
fairly upon us." A direct assertion of impossi-
bility, provocative of denial or discussion, would
have been less disheartening.

In passing, it may be remarked that McClel-
lan's prevision that the ultimate arbitrament of
the struggle must occur in Virginia was correct.
But in another point he was wrong, and unfortu-
nately this was of more immediate consequence,
because it corroborated him in his purpose to delay
till he could make success a certainty. He hoped
that when he moved, he should be able to win one
or two overwhelming victories, to capture Kich-
mond, and to crush the rebellion in a few weeks.
It was a brilliant and captivating programme,1
but impracticable and undesirable. Even had the

1 The Southerners also had the same notion, hoping by one
great victory to discourage and convince the North and make
peace on the basis of independence ; e. <jr., see Johnston's Narr.,
113, 115. Grant likewise had the notion of a decisive battle.
Memoirs, i. 368.

318 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Southerners been quelled by so great a disaster,
— which was not likely, — they would not have
been thoroughly conquered, nor would slavery
have been disposed of, and both these events were
indispensable to a definitive peace between the two
sections. Whether the President shared this no-
tion of his general is not evident. Apparently he
was not putting his mind upon theories reaching
into the future so much as he was devoting his
whole thought to dealing with the urgent prob-
lems of the present. If this was the case, he was
pursuing the wise and sound course. In the situ-
ation, it was more desirable to fight a great battle
at the earliest possible moment than to await a
great victory many months hence.

It is commonplace wisdom that it is foolish for
a civilian to undertake the direction of a war.
Yet our Constitution ordains that "the President
shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy
of the United States, and of the militia of the sev-
eral States, when called into the actual service of
the United States." It is not supposable that the
delegates who suggested this function, or the peo-
ple who ordained it, anticipated that presidents
generally would be men skilled in military sci-
ence. Therefore Mr. Lincoln could not escape
the obligation on the ground of unfitness for the
duty which was imperatively placed upon him. It
might be true that to set him in charge of military
operations was like ordering a merchant to paint
a picture or a jockey to sail a ship, but it was also

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FIRST ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 319

true that he was so set in charge. He could not
shirk it, nor did he try to shirk it. In conse-
quence hostile critics have dealt mercilessly with
his actions, and the history of this winter and
spring of 1861-62 is a painful and confusing story
of bitter controversy and crimination. Further it
is to be remembered that, apart from the obliga-
tion imposed on the President by the Constitution,
it was true that if civilians could not make rapid
progress in the military art, the war might as well
be abandoned. They were already supposed to be
doing so; General Banks, a politician, and Gen-
eral Butler, a lawyer, were already conducting
important movements. Still it remains undeniable
that finally it was only the professional soldiers
who, undergoing successfully the severe test of
time, composed the illustrious front rank of strate-
gists when the close of the war left every man in
his established place. In discussing this perplex-
ing period, extremists upon one side attribute the
miscarriages and failure of McClellan's campaign
to ceaseless, thwarting interference by the Presi-
dent, the Secretary of War and other civil offi-
cials. Extremists upon the other side allege the
marvel that a sudden development of unerring
judgment upon every question involving the prac-
tical application of military science took place on
Mr. Lincoln's part.1 Perhaps the truth lies be-
tween the disputants, but it is not likely ever to

1 The position taken by Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, I think, fully
warrants this language.

320 ABB AH AM LINCOLN.

be definitely agreed upon so long as the contro-
versy excites interest; for the discussion bristles
with ifs, and where this is the case no advocate
can be irremediably vanquished.

It seems right, at this place, to note one fact
concerning Mr. Lincoln which ought not to be
overlooked and which cannot be denied. This is
his entire political unselfishness, the rarest moral
quality among men in public life. In those days
of trouble and distrust slanders were rife in a
degree which can hardly be appreciated by men
whose experience has been only with quieter times.
Sometimes purposes and sometimes methods were
assailed; and those prominent in civil life, and a
few also in military life, were believed to be art-
fully and darkly seeking to interlace their personal
political fortunes in the web of public affairs, nat-
urally subordinating the latter fabric. Alliances,
enmities, intrigues, schemes, and every form of
putting the interest of self before that of the na-
tion, were insinuated with a bitter malevolence
unknown except amid such abnormal conditions.
The few who escaped charges of this kind were be-
lieved to cherish their own peculiar fanaticisms,
desires, and purposes concerning the object and
results of the struggle, which they were resolved
to satisfy at almost any cost and by almost any
means. While posterity is endeavoring very
wisely to discredit and to forget a great part of
these painful criminations, it is cheering to find
that no effort has to be made to forget anything

FIRST ACT OF THE MC CLE LEAN DRAMA. 321

about the President. In his case injurious gossip
has long since died away and been buried. What-
ever may be said of him in other respects, at least
the purity and the singleness of his patriotism
shine brilliant and luminous through all this cloud-
dust of derogation. By his position he had more
at stake, both in his lifetime and before the tri-
bunal of the future, than any other person in the
country. But there was only one idea in his
mind, and that was, — not that he should save the
country, but, that the country should he saved.
Not the faintest shadow of self ever fell for an in-
stant across this simple purpose. He was intent
to play his part out faithfully, with all the ability
he could bring to it; but any one else, who could,
might win and wear the title of savior. He chiefly
cared that the saving should be done. Never
once did he manipulate any covert magnet to draw
toward himself the credit or the glory of a measure
or a move. To his own future he seemed to give
no thought. It would be unjust to allow the dread
of appearing to utter eulogy rather than historic
truth to betray a biographer into overlooking this
genuine magnanimity.

It was in December, 1861, that Congress created
the famous Committee on the Conduct of the War,
to some of whose doings it has already been neces-
sary to allude. The gentlemen who were placed
upon it were selected partly of course for political
reasons, and were all men who had made them-

322 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

selves conspicuous for their enthusiasm and vehe-
mence; not one of them had any military know-
ledge. The Committee magnified its office almost
beyond limit, — investigated everything; haled
whom it chose to testify before it; made reports,
expressed opinions, insisted upon policies and
measures in matters military; and all with a
dictatorial assumption and self-confidence which
could not be devoid of effect, although every one
knew that each individual member was absolutely
without fitness for this business. So the Commit-
tee made itself a great power, and therefore also
a great complication, in the war -machinery ; and
though it was sometimes useful, yet, upon a final
balancing of its long account, it failed to justify
its existence, as, indeed, was to have been expected
from the outset.1 In the present discussions con-
cerning an advance of the army, its members stren-
uously insisted upon immediate action, and their
official influence brought much strength to that
side.

The first act indicating an intention on the
part of the President to interfere occurred almost
simultaneously with the beginning of the general's
illness. About December 21, 1861, he handed to
McClellan a brief memorandums "If it were de-
termined to make a forward movement of the army
of the Potomac, without awaiting further increase

1 General Palfrey says of this committee that " the worst spirit
of the Inquisition characterized their doings." The Antietam and
Fredericksburg (Campaigns of Civil War Series), 182.

FIRST ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 323

of numbers or better drill and discipline, how long
would it require to actually get in motion ? After
leaving all that would be necessary, how many
troops could join the movement from southwest of
the river? How many from northeast of it?"
Then he proceeded briefly to hint rather than dis-
tinctly to suggest that plan of a direct advance by
way of Centreville and Manassas, which later on
he persistently advocated. Ten days elapsed be-
fore McClellan returned answers, which then came
in a shape too curt to be respectful. Almost im-
mediately afterward the general fell ill, an occur-
rence which seemed to his detractors a most aggra-
vating and unjustifiable intervention of Nature
herself in behalf of his policy of delay.

On January 10 a dispatch from General Halleck
represented in his department also a condition of
check and helplessness. Lincoln noted upon it:
"Exceedingly discouraging. As everywhere else,
nothing can be done." Yet something must be
done, for the game was not to be abandoned. Un-
der this pressure, on this same day, he visited Mc-
Clellan, but could not see him ; nor could he get
any definite idea how long might be the duration
of the typhoid fever, the lingering and uncertain
disease which had laid the general low. Accord-
ingly he summoned General McDowell and Gen-
eral Franklin to discuss with him that evening the
military situation. The Secretaries of State and
of the Treasury, and the Assistant Secretary of
War also came. The President, says McDowell,

324 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

"was greatly disturbed at the state of affairs,'*
"was in great distress," and said that, "if some-
thing was not done soon, the bottom would be out
of the whole affair; and if General McClellan did
not want to use the army, he would like to ' borrow
it, ' provided he could see how it could be made to
do something." The two generals were directed
to inform themselves concerning the "actual con-
dition of the army," and to come again the next
day. Conferences followed on January 11 and 12,
Postmaster-General Blair and General Meigs be-
ing added to the council. The Postmaster-General
condemned a direct advance as "strategically de-
fective," while Chase descanted on the "moral
power" of a victory. The picture of the two civ-
ilians injecting their military suggestions is not
reassuring. Meigs is somewhat vaguely reported
to have favored a "battle in front."

McDowell and Franklin had not felt justified in
communicating these occurrences to McClellan,
because the President had marked his order to
them "private and confidential." But the com-
mander heard rumors of what was going forward,1
and on January 12 he came from his sick-room
to see the President; he was "looking quite well,"
and apparently was "able to assume the charge of
the army." The apparition put a different com-
plexion upon the pending discussions. On the
13th the same gentlemen met, but now with the
addition of General McClellan. The situation

1 Through Stanton ; McClellan, Own Story, 156.

324 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

"was greatly disturbed at the state of affairs,"
"was in great distress," and said that, "if some-
thing was not done soon, the bottom would be out
of the whole affair ; and if General McClellan did
not want to use the army, he would like to ' borrow
it, ' provided he could see how it could be made to
do something." The two generals were directed
to inform themselves concerning the "actual con-
dition of the army," and to come again the next
day. Conferences followed on January 11 and 12,
Postmaster-General Blair and General Meigs be-
ing added to the council. The Postmaster-General
condemned a direct advance as "strategically de-
fective," while Chase descanted on the "moral
power " of a victory. The picture of the two civ-
ilians injecting their military suggestions is not
reassuring. Meigs is somewhat vaguely reported
to have favored a "battle in front."

1 Through Stanton ; McClellan, Own Story, 156.

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 325

was embarrassing. McClellan took scant pains to
conceal his resentment. McDowell, at the request
of the President, explained what he thought could
be done, closing "by saying something apolo-
getic; " to which McClellan replied, "somewhat
coldly if not curtly: 'You are entitled to have
any opinion you please.'" Secretary Chase, a
leader among the anti-McClellanites, bluntly asked
the general to explain his military plans in detail;
but McClellan declined to be interrogated except
by the President, or by the Secretary of War, who
was not present. Finally, according to McClel-
lan's account, which differs a little but not essen-
tially from that of McDowell, Mr. Lincoln sug-
gested * that he should tell what his plans were.
McClellan replied, in substance, that this would
be imprudent and seemed unnecessary, and that he
would only give information if the President would
order him in writing to do so, and would assume
the responsibility for the results.2 McDowell adds
(but McClellan does not), that the President then
asked McClellan " if he had counted upon any par-
ticular time ; he did not ask what that time was,
but had he in his own mind any particular time
fixed, when a movement could be commenced. He
replied, he had. 'Then,' rejoined the President,
'I will adjourn this meeting.'" This unfortu-

1 Only a few days before this time Lincoln had said that he
had no "right" to insist upon knowing the general's plans.
Julian, Polit. Recoil, 201.

2 It appears that he feared that what he said would leak out,
and ultimately reach the enemy.

326 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

nate episode aggravated the discord, arid removed
confidence and cooperation farther away than ever
before.

The absence of the Secretary of War from these
meetings was due to the fact that a change in the
War Department was in process contemporane-
ously with them. The President had been allowed
to understand that Mr. Cameron did not find his
duties agreeable, and might prefer a diplomatic
post. Accordingly, with no show of reluctance,
Mr. Lincoln, on January 11, 1862, offered to Mr.
Cameron the post of Minister to Russia. It was
promptly accepted, and on January 13 Edwin M.
Stanton was nominated and confirmed to fill the
vacancy.1 The selection was a striking instance
of the utter absence of vindictiveness which so dis-
tinguished Mr. Lincoln, who, in fact, was simply
insensible to personal feeling as an influence. In
choosing incumbents for public trusts, he knew no
foe, perhaps no friend; but as dispassionately as
if he were manoeuvring pieces on a chessboard, he
considered only which available piece would serve
best in the square which he had to fill. In 1859
he and Stanton had met as associate counsel in
perhaps the most important law-suit in which Mr.
Lincoln had ever been concerned, and Stanton
had treated Lincoln with his habitual insolence.2

1 For an interesting account of these incidents, from Secretary
Chase's Diary, see Warden, 401.

2 Lamon, 332 ; Herndon, 353-56 ; N. and H. try to mitigate this
story, v. 133.

FIRST ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 327

Later, in the trying months which closed the year
1861, Stanton had abused the administration with
violence, and had carried his revilings of the Pres-
ident even to the point of coarse personal insults.1
No man, not being a rebel, had less right to expect
an invitation to become an adviser of the Presi-
dent; and most men, who had felt or expressed
the opinions held by Mr. Stanton, would have had
scruples or delicacy about coming into the close
relationship of confidential adviser with the object
of their contempt; but neither scruples nor deli-
cacy delayed him; his acceptance was prompt.2

So Mr. Lincoln had chosen his Secretary solely
upon the belief of the peculiar fitness of the indi-
vidual for the special duties of the war office.
Upon the whole the choice was wisely made, and
was evidence of Mr. Lincoln's insight into the
aptitudes and the uses of men. Stanton's abilities
commanded some respect, though his character
never excited either respect or liking; just now,
however, all his good qualities and many of his
faults seemed precisely adapted to the present re-
quirements of his Department. He had been a
Democrat, but was now zealous to extremity in pa-
triotism ; in his dealings with men he was capable
of much duplicity, yet in matters of business he
was rigidly honest, and it was his pleasure to pro-
tect the Treasury against the contractors ; he loved

1 He did not always feel his tongue tied afterward by the obli-
gations of office ; e. g., see Julian, Polit. Recoil., 210.

2 For a singular tale, see McClellan, Own Story, 153.

328 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

work, and never wearied amid the driest and most
exacting toil; he was prompt and decisive rather
than judicial or correct in his judgments concern-
ing men and things ; he was arbitrary, harsh, bad-
tempered, and impulsive; he often committed acts
of injustice or cruelty, for which he rarely made
amends and still more rarely seemed disturbed by
remorse or regret. These traits bore hard upon
individuals; but ready and unscrupulous severity
was supposed to have its usefulness in a civil war.
Many a time he taxed the forbearance of the Presi-
dent to a degree that would have seemed to trans-
cend the uttermost limit of human patience, if Mr.
Lincoln had not taken these occasions to show to
the world how forbearing and patient it is possible
for man to be. But those who knew the relations
of the two men are agreed that Stanton, however
brow-beating he was to others, recognized a mas-
ter in the President, and though often grumbling
and insolent, always submitted if a crisis came.
Undoubtedly Mr. Lincoln was the only ruler
known to history who could have cooperated for
years with such a minister. He succeeded in do-
ing so because he believed it to be for the good of
the cause, to which he could easily subordinate all
personal considerations; and posterity, agreeing
with him, concedes to Stanton credit for efficiency
in the conduct of his department.

It is worth while here to pause long enough to
read part of a letter which, on this same crowded
thirteenth day of January, 1862, the President sent

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FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA, 329

to General Halleck, in the West: "For my own
views : I have not offered, and do not now offer,
them as orders ; and while I am glad to have them
respectfully considered, I would blame you to fol-
low them contrary to your own clear judgment,
unless I should put them in the form of orders.
. . . With this preliminary, I state my general
idea of this war to be that we have the greater
numbers and the enemy has the greater facility
of concentrating forces upon points of collision;
that we must fail unless we can find some way of
making our advantage an overmatch for his ; and
that this can only be done by menacing him with
superior forces at different points at the same
time, so that we can safely attack one or both
if he makes no change; and if he weakens one
to strengthen the other, forbear to attack the
strengthened one, but seize and hold the weakened
one, gaining so much."

In a personal point of view this short letter is
pregnant with interest and suggestion. The writ-
er's sad face, eloquent of the charge and burden
of one of the most awful destinies of human-kind,
rises before us as we read the expression of his
modest self -distrust amid the strange duties of
military affairs. But closely following this comes
the intimation that in due time "orders" will
come. Such was the quiet, unflinching way in
which Lincoln always faced every test, apparently
with a tranquil and assured faith that, whatever
might seem his lack of fitting preparation, his best

330 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

would be adequate to the occasion. The habit has
led many to fancy that he believed himself di-
vinely chosen, and therefore sure of infallible guid-
ance; but it is observable far back, almost from
the beginning of his life ; it was a trait of mind
and character, nothing else. The letter closes
with a broad general theory concerning the war,
wrought out by that careful process of thinking
whereby he was wont to make his way to the big,
simple and fundamental truth. The whole is worth
holding in memory through the narrative of the
coming weeks.

The conference of January 13 developed a seri-
ous difference of opinion as to the plan of cam-
paign, whenever a campaign should be entered
upon. The President's notion, already shadowed
forth in his memorandum of December, was, to
move directly upon the rebel army at Centreville
and Manassas and to press it back upon [Rich-
mond, with the purpose of capturing that city.
But McClellan presented as his project a move-
ment by Urbana and West Point, using the York
River as a base of supplies. General McDowell
and Secretary Chase favored the President's plan;
General Franklin and Postmaster Blair thought
better of McClellan' s. The President had a
strong fancy for his own scheme, because by it the
Union army was kept between the enemy and
Washington; and therefore the supreme point of
importance, the safety of the national capital, was
ensured. The discussion, which was thus opened

-Eng . V Geo, i.Penae ■

BRIG.- GEN. IRWIN MCDOWELL U.S.A.

From PhotograpJv by BrcuZy.

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 331

and which remained long unsettled, had, among
other ill effects, that of sustaining the vexatious
delay. While the anti - McClellan faction — for
the matter was becoming one of factions 1 — grew
louder in denunciation of his inaction and fastened
upon him the contemptuous nickname of "the
Virginia creeper,'' the friends of the general re-
torted that the President, meddling in what he
did not understand, would not let the military com-
mander manage the war.

Nevertheless Mr. Lincoln, dispassionate and
fair-minded as usual, allowed neither their per-
sonal difference of opinion nor this abusive outcry
to inveigle into his mind any prejudice against
McClellan. The Southerner who, in February,
1861, predicted that Lincoln "would do his own
thinking," read character well. Lincoln was now
doing precisely this thing, in his silent, thorough,
independent way, neither provoked by McClellan 's

1 In fact, the feeling against McClellan was getting so strong
that some of his enemies were wild enough about this time to
accuse him of disloyalty. He himself narrates a dramatic tale,
which would seem incredible if his veracity were not beyond
question, of an interview, occurring March 8, 1862, in which the
President told him, apparently with the air of expecting an ex-
planation, that he was charged with laying his plans with the
traitorous intent of leaving Washington defenseless. McClellan' s
Own Story, 195. On the other hand McClellan retaliated by be-
lieving that his detractors wished, for political and personal mo-
tives, to prevent the war from being brought to an early and
successful close, and that they intentionally withheld from him
the means of success ; also that Stanton especially sought by un-
derhand means to sow misunderstanding between him and the
President. Ibid. 195.

332 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

cavalier assumption of superior knowledge, nor
alarmed by the danger of offending the politicians.
In fact, he decided to go counter to both the dis-
putants ; for he resolved, on the one hand, to com-
pel McClellan to act; on the other, to maintain
him in his command. He did not, however, aban-
don his own plan of campaign. On January 27,
as commander-in-chief of the army, he issued his
"General War Order No. 1." In this he di-
rected "that the 22d day of February, 1862, be
the day for a general movement of the land and
naval forces of the United States against the in-
surgent forces;" and said that heads of depart-
ments and military and naval commanders would
"be held to their strict and full reponsibilities for
prompt execution of this order." By this he prac-
tically repudiated McClellan 's scheme, because
transportation and other preparations for pursuing
the route by Urbana could not be made ready by
the date named.

Critics of the President have pointed to this
document as a fine instance of the follies to be ex-
pected from a civil ruler who conducts a war. To
order an advance all along a line from the Missis-
sippi to the Atlantic, upon a day certain, without
regard to differing local conditions and exigencies,
and to notify the enemy of the purpose nearly a
month beforehand, were acts preposterous accord-
ing to military science. But the criticism was not
so fair as it was obvious. The order really bore
in part the character of a manifesto ; to the people

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 333

of the North, whose confidence must be kept and
their spirit sustained, it said that the administra-
tion meant action at once ; to commanding officers
it was a fillip, warning them to bestir themselves,
obstacles to the contrary notwithstanding. It was
a reveille. Further, in a general way it undoubt-
edly laid out a sound plan of campaign, substan-
tially in accordance with that which McClellan
also was evolving, viz. : to press the enemy all
along the western and middle line, and thus to
prevent his making too formidable a concentration
in Virginia. In the end, however, practicable or
impracticable, wise or foolish, the order was never
fulfilled. The armies in Virginia did nothing till
many weeks after the anniversary of Washington's
birthday; whereas, in the West, Admiral Foote
and General Grant did not conceive that they were
enforced to rest in idleness until that historic date.
Before it arrived they had performed the brilliant
exploits of capturing Fort Henry and Fort Donel-
son.

On January 31 the President issued "Special
War Order No. 1," directing the army of the
Potomac to seize and occupy "a point upon the
railroad southwestward of what is known as Ma-
nassas Junction ; . . . the expedition to move be-
fore or on the 22d day of February next." This
was the distinct, as the general order had been
the indirect, adoption of his own plan of cam-
paign, and the over-ruling of that of the general.
McClellan at once remonstrated, and the two rival

334 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

plans thus came face to face for immediate and
definitive settlement. It must be assumed that
the President's order had been really designed
only to force exactly this issue ; for on February
3, so soon as he received the remonstrance, he in-
vited argument from the general by writing to
him a letter which foreshadowed an open-minded
reception for views opposed to his own : —

"If you will give satisfactory answers to the
following questions, I shall gladly yield my plan
to yours : —

"1st. Does not your plan involve a greatly
larger expenditure of time and money than mine ?

" 2d. Wherein is a victory more certain by your
plan than mine?

"3d. Wherein is a victory more valuable by
your plan than mine ?

"4th. In fact, would it not be less valuable in
this: that it would break no great line of the
enemy's communications, while mine would?

"5th. In case of disaster would not a retreat be
more difficult by your plan than mine?"

To these queries McClellan replied by a long
and elaborate exposition of his views. He said
that, if the President's plan should be pursued
successfully, the "results would be confined to the
possession of the field of battle, the evacuation of
the line of the upper Potomac by the enemy, and
the moral effect of the victory." On the other
hand, a movement in force by the route which he
advocated " obliges the enemy to abandon his in-

FIRST ACT OF THE M^CLELLAN DRAMA. 335

trenched position at Manassas, in order to hasten
to cover Richmond and Norfolk." That is to
say, he expected to achieve by a manoeuvre what
the President designed to effect by a battle, to
be fought by inexperienced troops against an
intrenched enemy. He continued: "This move-
ment, if successful, gives us the capital, the com-
munications, the supplies, of the rebels; Norfolk
would fall ; all the waters of the Chesapeake would
be ours ; all Virginia would be in our power, and
the enemy forced to abandon Tennessee and North
Carolina. The alternative presented to the enemy
would be, to beat us in a position selected by
ourselves, disperse, or pass beneath the Caudine
forks." In case of defeat, the Union army would
have a "perfectly secure retreat down the Penin-
sula upon Fort Monroe." "This letter," he af-
terward wrote, "must have produced some effect
upon the mind of the President! " The slur was
unjust. The President now and always considered
the views of the general with a liberality of mind
rarely to be met with in any man, and certainly
never in McClellan himself. In this instance the
letter did in fact produce so much "effect upon
the mind of the President " that he prepared to
yield views which he held very strongly to views
which he was charged with not being able to un-
derstand and which he certainly could not bring
himself actually to believe in.

Yet before quite taking this step he demanded
that a council of the generals of division should be

336 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

summoned to express their opinions. This was
done, with the result that McDowell, Sumner,
Heintzelman and Barnard voted against McClel-
lan's plan; Keyes voted for it, with the proviso
"that no change should be made until the rebels
were driven from their batteries on the Potomac."
Fitz-John Porter, Franklin, W. F. Smith, Mc-
Call, Blenker, Andrew Porter, and Naglee (of
Hooker's division) voted for it. Stanton after-
ward said of this: "We saw ten generals afraid
to fight." The insult, delivered in the snug per-
sonal safety which was suspected to be very dear
to Stanton, was ridiculous as aimed at men who
soon handled some of the most desperate battles of
the war; but it is interesting as an expression of
the unreasoning bitterness of the controversy then
waging over the situation in Virginia, a contro-
versy causing animosities vastly more fierce than
any between Union soldiers and Confederates,
animosities which have unfortunately lasted longer,
and which can never be brought to the like final
and conclusive arbitrament. The purely military
question quickly became snarled up with politics
and was reduced to very inferior proportions in
the noxious competition. "Politics entered and
strategy retired," says General Webb, too truly.
McClellan himself conceived that the politicians
were leagued to destroy him and would rather see
him discredited than the rebels whipped. In later
days the strong partisan loves and hatreds of our
historical writers have perpetuated and increased
all this bad blood, confusion, and obscurity.

, a, /4^t)l/c^ '

■>

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 337

The action of the council of generals was con-
clusive. The President accepted McClellan's
plan. Therein he did right; for undeniably it
was his duty to allow his own inexperience to be
controlled by the deliberate opinion of the best
military experts in the country; and this fact is
wholly independent of any opinion concerning the
intrinsic or the comparative merits of the plans
themselves. Indeed Mr. Lincoln had never ex-
pressed positive disapproval of McClellan's plan
per se9 but only had been alarmed at what seemed
to him its indirect result in exposing the capital.
To cover this point, he now made an imperative
preliminary condition that this safety should be
placed beyond a question. He was emphatic and
distinct in reiterating this proviso, as fundamental.
The preponderance of professional testimony, from
that day to this, has been to the effect that Mc-
Clellan's strategy was sound and able, and that
Mr. Lincoln's anxiety for the capital was ground-
less. But in spite of all argument, and though
military men may shed ink as if it were mere
blood, in spite even of the contempt and almost
ridicule which the President incurred at the pen
of McClellan,1 the civilian will retain a lurking
sympathy with the President's preference. It is
impossible not to reflect that precisely in propor-

1 McClellan afterward wrote that the administration "had
neither courage nor military insight to understand the effect of
the plan I desired to carry out." Own Story, 194. This is per-
haps a mild example of many remarks to the same purport which
fell from the general at one time and another.

338 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

tion as the safety of the capital, for many weighty
reasons, immeasurably outweighed any other pos-
sible consideration in the minds of the Northern-
ers, so the desire to capture it would be equally
overmastering in the estimation of the Southern-
ers. Why might not the rebels permit McClellan
to march into Richmond, provided that at the
same time they were marching into Washington?
Why might they not, in the language afterward
used by General Lee, "swap Queens"? They
would have a thousand-fold the better of the ex-
change. The Northern Queen was an incalcula-
bly more valuable piece on the board than was
her Southern rival. With the Northern govern-
ment in flight, Maryland would go to the Confed-
eracy, and European recognition would be sure
and immediate ; and these two facts might, almost
surely would, be conclusive against the Northern
cause. Moreover, memory will obstinately bring
up the fact that long afterward, when General
Grant was pursuing a route to Richmond strategi-
cally not dissimilar to that proposed by McClel-
lan, and when all the circumstances made the dan-
ger of a successful attack upon Washington much
less than it was in the spring of 1862, the rebels
actually all but captured the city; and it was
saved not alone by a rapidity of movement which
would have been impossible in the early stages of
the war, but also by what must be called the aid
of good luck. It is difficult to see why General
Jackson in 1862 might not have played in fatal

MAJ. GEN. GEO P,. MS CLELLiST, 11 S. A.

, 6L/-/L

.. 7 i .

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 339

earnest a game which in 1864 General Early-
played merely for the chances. Pondering upon
these things it is probable that no array of military
scientists will ever persuade the non-military world
that Mr. Lincoln was so timid or so dull-witted
or so unreasonable as General McClellan declared
him to be.

Another consideration is suggested by some re-
marks of Mr. Swinton. It is tolerably obvious
that, whether McClellan' s plan was or was not
the better, the President's plan was entirely possi-
ble; all that could be said against it was, that
it promised somewhat poorer results at somewhat
higher cost. This being the case, and in view of
the fact that the President's disquietude concern-
ing Washington was so profound and his distrust
of McClellan 's plan so ineradicable, it would have
been much better to have had the yielding come
from the general than from the President. A man
of less stubborn temper and of broader intellect
than belonged to McClellan would have appre-
ciated this. In fact, it was in a certain sense
even poor generalship to enter upon a campaign
of such magnitude, when a thorough and hearty
co'operation was really not to be expected. For
after all might be ostensibly settled and agreed
upon, and however honest might be Mr. Lincoln's
intentions to support the commanding general,
one thing still remained certain: that the safety
of the capital was Mr. Lincoln's weightiest re-
sponsibility, that it was a matter concerning which

340 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

he was sensitively anxious, and that he was per-
fectly sure in any moment of alarm concerning
that safety to ensure it by any means in his power
and at any sacrifice whatsoever. In a word, that
which soon did happen was precisely that which
ought to have been foreseen as likely to happen.
For it was entirely obvious that Mr. Lincoln did
not abandon his own scheme because his own rea-
son was convinced of the excellence of McClel-
lan's; in fact he never was and never pretended
to be thus convinced. To his mind McClellan's
reasoning never overcame his own reasoning; he
only gave way before professional authority; and,
while he sincerely meant to give McClellan the
most efficient aid and backing in his power, the
anxiety about Washington rested immovable in
his thought. If the two interests should ever, in
his opinion, come into competition, no one could
doubt which would be sacrificed. To push for-
ward the Peninsula Campaign under these condi-
tions was a terrible mistake of judgment on Mc-
Clellan's part. Far better would it have been to
have taken the Manassas route ; for even if its in-
herent demerits were really so great as McClellan
had depicted, they would have been more than
offset by preserving the undiminished cooperation
of the administration. The personal elements in
the problem ought to have been conclusive.

An indication of the error of forcing the Presi-
dent into a course not commended by his judg-
ment, in a matter where his responsibility was so

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 341

grave, was seen immediately. On March 8 he
issued General War Order No. 3 : That no change
of base should be made "without leaving in and
about Washington such a force as, in the opinion
of the general-in-chief and the commanders of
army corps, shall leave said city entirely secure; "
that not more than two corps (about 50,000 men)
should be moved en route for a new base until the
Potomac, below Washington, should be freed from
the Confederate batteries; that any movement of
the army via Chesapeake Bay should begin as
early as March 18, and that the general-in-chief
should be "responsible that it moves as early as
that day." This greatly aggravated McClellan's
dissatisfaction; for it expressed the survival of
the President's anxiety, it hampered the general,
and by its last clause it placed upon him a respon-
sibility not properly his own.

Yet at this very moment weighty evidence came
to impeach the soundness of McClellan's opinion
concerning the military situation. On February
27 Secretary Chase wrote that the time had come
for dealing decisively with the "army in front of
us," which he conceived to be already so weakened
that "a victory over it is deprived of half its
honor." Not many days after this writing, the
civilian strategists, the President and his friends,
seemed entitled to triumph. For on March 7, 8,
and 9, the North was astonished by news of the
evacuation of Manassas by Johnston. At once the
cry of McClellan's assailants went up: If McClel-

342 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Ian had only moved upon the place ! What a
cheap victory he would have won, and attended
with what invaluable "moral effects" ! Yet, for-
sooth, he had been afraid to move upon these
very intrenched positions which it now appeared
that the Confederates dared not hold even when
unthreatened ! But McClellan retorted that the
rebels had taken this backward step precisely be-
cause they had got some hint of his designs for ad-
vancing by Urbana, and that it was the exact
fulfilment, though inconveniently premature, of his
predictions. This explanation, however, wholly
failed to prevent the civilian mind from believing
that a great point had been scored on behalf of the
President's plan. Further than this, there were
many persons, including even a majority of the
members of the Committee on the Conduct of the
War, who did not content themselves with mere
abuse of McClellan 's military intelligence, but
who actually charged him with being disaffected
and nearly, if not quite, a traitor. None the less
Mr. Lincoln generously and patiently adhered to
his agreement to let McClellan have his own way.
Precisely at the same time that this evacuation
of Manassas gave to McClellan 's enemies an argu-
ment against him which they deemed fair and
forcible and he deemed unfair and ignorant, two
other occurrences added to the strain of the situa-
tion. McClellan immediately put his entire force
in motion towards the lines abandoned by the Con-
federates, not with the design of pressing the re-

FIRST ACT OF TEE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 343

treating foe, which the "almost impassable roads"
prevented, but to strip off redundancies and to
train the troops in marching. On March 11, im-
mediately after he had started, the President
issued his Special War Order No. 3 : "Major-Gen-
eral McClellan having personally taken the field
at the head of the army of the Potomac, ... he
is relieved from the command of the other military
departments, he retaining command of the Depart-
ment of the Potomac." McClellan at once wrote
that he should continue to "work just as cheerfully
as before; " but he felt that the removal was very
unhandsomely made just as he was entering upon
active operations. Lincoln on the other hand un-
doubtedly looked upon it in precisely the opposite
light, and conceived that the opportunity of the
moment deprived of any apparent sting a change
which he had determined to make. The duties
which were thus taken from McClellan were as-
sumed during several months by Mr. Stanton.
He was utterly incompetent for them, and whether
or not it was wise to displace the general, it was
certainly very unwise to let the Secretary practi-
cally succeed him.1 The way in which, both at
the East and West, our forces were distributed
into many independent commands with no com-
petent chief who could compel all to cooperate
and to become subsidiary to one comprehensive
scheme, was a serious mistake in general policy,

1 See remarks of Mr. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 368.

344 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

which cost very dear before it was recognized.1
McClellan had made some efforts to effect this
combination or unity in purpose, but Stanton gave
no indication even of understanding that it was
desirable.

The other matter was the division of the army
of the Potomac into four army corps, to be com-
manded respectively by the four senior generals
of division, viz., McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman
and Keyes. The propriety of this action had
been for some time under consideration, and the
step was now forced upon Mr. Lincoln by the
strenuous insistance of the Committee on the Con-
duct of the War. That so large an army required
organization by corps was admitted; but McClel-
lan had desired to defer the arrangement until his
generals of division should have had some actual
experience in the field, whereby their comparative
fitness for higher responsibilities could be mea-
sured. An incapable corps commander was a
much more dangerous man than an incapable com-
mander of a division or brigade. The com-
mander naturally felt the action, now taken by the
President, to be a slight, and he attributed it to
pressure by the band of civilian advisers whose un-
tiring hostility he returned with unutterable con-
tempt. Not only was the taking of the step at
this time contrary to his advice, but he was not

1 E. g., McClellan, Bep. (per Keyes), 82; Grant, Mem., i. 322;
and indeed all writers agree upon this.

FIRST ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA. 345

even consulted in the selection of his own subordi-
nates, who were set in these important positions
by the blind rule of seniority, and not in accord-
ance with his opinion of comparative merit. His
irritation was perhaps not entirely unjustifiable.

CHAPTER XI.
MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA.

The man who first raised the cry " On to Rich-
mond" uttered the formula of the war. Rich-
mond was the gage of victory. Thus it happened,
as has been seen, that every one at the North,
from the President down, had his attention fast
bound to the melancholy procession of delays and
miscarriages in Virginia. At the West there
were important things to be done; the States of
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, trembling in
the balance, were to be lost or won for the Union;
the passage down the Mississippi to the Gulf was
at stake, and with it the prosperity and develop-
ment of the boundless regions of the Northwest.
Surely these were interests of some moment, and
worthy of liberal expenditure of thought and en-
ergy, men and money; yet the swarm of politi-
cians gave them only side glances, being unable for
many minutes in any day to withdraw their eyes
from the Old Dominion. The consequence was
that at the East matters military and matters polit-
ical, generals and "public men" of all varieties
were mixed in a snarl of back-biting and quarrel-
ling, which presented a spectacle most melancholy

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 347

and discouraging. On the other hand the West
throve surprisingly well in the absence of politi-
cal nourishment, and certain local commanders
achieved cheering successes without any aid from
the military civilians of Washington. The con-
trast seems suggestive, yet perhaps it is incorrect
to attach to these facts any sinister significance, or
any connection of cause and effect. Other reasons
than civilian assistance may account for the Vir-
ginia failures, while Western successes may have
been won in spite of neglect rather than by reason
of it. Still, simply as naked facts, these things
were so.

Upon occurrences outside of Virginia Mr. Lin-
coln bestowed more thought than was fashionable
in Washington, and maintained an oversight
strongly in contrast to the indifference of those
who seemed to recognize no other duty than to
discuss the demerits of General McClellan. The
President had at least the good sense to see the
value of unity of plan and cooperation along the
whole line, from the Atlantic seaboard to the ex-
treme West. Also at the West as at the East he
was bent upon advancing, pressing the enemy,
and doing something positive. He had not occa-
sion to use the spur at the West either so often or
so severely as at the East ; yet Halleck and Buell
needed it and got it more than once. The West-
ern commanders, like those at the East, and with
better reason, were importunate for more men and
more equipment. The President could not, by

348 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

any effort, meet their requirements. He wrote to
McClernand after the battle of Belmont: "Much,
very much, goes undone ; but it is because we have
not the power to do it faster than we do." Some
troops were without arms; but, he said, "the plain
matter of fact is, our good people have rushed to
the rescue of the government faster than the gov-
ernment can find arms to put in their hands."
Yet, withal, it is true that Mr. Lincoln's actual
interferences at the South and West were so occa-
sional and incidental, that, since this writing is a
biography of him and not a history of the war,
there is need only for a list of the events which
were befalling outside of that absorbing domain
which lay around the rival capitals.

Along the southern Atlantic coast some rather
easy successes were rapidly won. August 29,
1861, Hatteras Inlet was taken, with little fight-
ing. November 7, Port Royal followed. Lying
nearly midway between Charleston and Savannah,
and being a very fine harbor, this was a prize of
value. January 7, 1862, General Burnside was
directed to take command of the Department of
North Carolina. February 8, Roanoke Island
was seized by the Federal forces. March 14, New-
bern fell. April 11, Fort Pulaski, at the mouth
of the Savannah River, was taken. April 26,
Beaufort was occupied. The blockade of the
other Atlantic ports having long since been made
effective, the Eastern seaboard thus early became
a prison wall for the Confederacy.

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 349

At the extreme West Missouri gave the President
some trouble. The bushwhacking citizens of that
frontier State, divided not unequally between the
Union and Disunion sides, entered upon an irregu-
lar but energetic warfare with ready zeal if not
actually with pleasure. Northerners in general
hardly paused to read the newspaper accounts of
these rough encounters; but the President was
much concerned to save the State. As it lay over
against Illinois along the banks of the Mississippi
Eiver, and for the most part above the important
strategic point where Cairo controls the junction of
that river with the Ohio, possession of it appeared
to him exceedingly desirable. In the hope of
helping matters forward, on July 3, 1861, he
created the Department of the West, and placed
it under command of General Fremont. But the
choice proved unfortunate. Fremont soon showed
himself inefficient and troublesome. At first the
President endeavored to allay the local bicker-
ings; on September 9, 1861, he wrote to General
Hunter : " General Fremont needs assistance which
it is difficult to give him. He is losing the confi-
dence of men near him. . . . His cardinal mistake
is that he isolates himself; ... he does not know
what is going on. . . . He needs to have by his
side a man of large experience. Will you not, for
me, take that place ? Your rank is one grade too
high; . . . but will you not serve the country,
and oblige me, by taking it voluntarily? " Kindly
consideration, however, was thrown away upon

350 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Fremont, whose self-esteem was so great that he
could not see that he ought to be grateful, or that
he must be subordinate. He owed his appoint-
ment largely to the friendly urgency of the Blair
family, and now Postmaster-General Blair, puz-
zled at the disagreeable stories about him, went to
St. Louis on an errand of investigation. Fremont
promptly placed him under arrest. At the same
time Mrs. Fremont was journeying to Washington,
where she had an extraordinary interview with the
President. " She sought an audience with me at
midnight," wrote Lincoln, "and taxed me so vio-
lently with many things that I had to exercise all
the awkward tact I have to avoid quarrelling with
her. . . . She more than once intimated that if
General Fremont should decide to try conclusions
with me, he could set up for himself." Naturally
the angry lady's threats of treason, instead of seem-
ing a palliation of her husband's shortcomings,
tended to made his displacement more inevitable.
Yet the necessity of being rid of him was unfortu-
nate, because he was the pet hero of the Abolition-
ists, who stood by him without the slightest regard
to reason. Lincoln was loath to offend them, but
he felt that he had no choice, and therefore ordered
the removal. He preserved, however, that habit-
ual strange freedom from personal resentment
which made his feelings, like his action, seem to
be strictly official. After the matter was all over
he uttered a fair judgment: "I thought well of
Fremont. Even now I think well of his impulses.

IP'f SI ifSfn r|f ff f f T";

R0AJ]o(EERIo[HlEMffiV WAdSEK MAO. LIE

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 351

I only think he is the prey of wicked and design-
ing men ; and I think he has absolutely no military
capacity.'* For a short while General Hunter
filled Fremont's place, until, in November, Gen-
eral Henry W. Halleck was assigned to command
the Department of Missouri. In February, 1862,
General Curtis drove the only regular and consid-
erable rebel force across the border into Arkansas ;
and soon afterward, March 7 and 8, within this
latter State, he won the victory of Pea Ridge.

In Tennessee the vote upon secession had indi-
cated that more than two thirds of the dwellers in
the mountainous eastern region were Unionists.
Mr. Lincoln had it much at heart to sustain these
men, and aside from the personal feeling of loyalty
to them it was also a point of great military con-
sequence to hold this district. Near the boundary
separating the northeastern corner of the State from
Kentucky, the famous Cumberland Gap gave pas-
sage through the Cumberland Mountains for the
East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, " the artery
that supplied the rebellion." The President saw,
as many others did, and appreciated much more
than others seemed to do, the desirability of gain-
ing this place. To hold it would be to cut in
halves, between east and west, the northern line of
the Confederacy. In the early days a movement
towards the Gap seemed imprudent in face of
Kentucky's theory of "neutrality." But this fool-
ish notion was in time effectually disposed of by
the Confederates. Unable to resist the temptation

352 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

offered by the important position of Columbus at
the western end of the State on the Mississippi
River, they seized that place in September, 1861.
The state legislature, incensed at the intrusion,
immediately embraced the Union cause and wel-
comed the Union forces within the state lines.

This action opened the way for the President to
make strenuous efforts for the protection of the
East Tennesseeans and the possession of the Gap.
In his annual Message he urged upon Congress the
construction of a military railroad to the Gap, and
afterward appeared in person to advocate this
measure before a committee of the Senate. If the
place had been in Virginia, he might have gained
for his project an attention which, as matters stood,
the politicians never accorded to it. He also en-
deavored to stir to action General Buell, who com-
manded in Kentucky. Buell, an appointee and
personal friend of General McClellan, resembled
his chief somewhat too closely both in character
and history. Just as Mr. Lincoln had to prick
McClellan in Virginia, he now had to prick Buell
in Kentucky, and just as McClellan failed to re-
spond in Virginia, Buell also failed in Kentucky.
Further, Buell, like McClellan, had with him a
force very much greater than that before him ; but
Buell, like McClellan, would not admit that his
troops were in condition to move. The result was
that Jefferson Davis, more active to protect a cru-
cial point than the North was to assail it, in De-
cember, 1861, sent into East Tennessee a force

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 353

which imprisoned, deported, and hanged the loyal
residents there, harried the country without mercy,
and held it with the iron hand. The poor moun-
taineers, with good reason, concluded that the hos-
tility of the South was a terribly serious evil,
whereas the friendship of the North was a sadly
useless good. The President was bitterly cha-
grined ; although certainly the blame did not rest
with him. Then the parallel between Buell and
McClellan was continued even one step further;
for Buell at last intimated that he did not approve
of the plan of campaign suggested for him, but
thought it would be better tactics to move upon
Nashville. It so happened, however, that when
he expressed these views McClellan was comman-
der-in-chief of all the armies, and that general,
being little tolerant of criticism from subordinates
when he himself was the superior, responded very
tartly and imperiously. Lincoln, on the other
hand, according to his wont, wrote modestly:
"Your dispatch . . . disappoints and distresses
me. ... I am not competent to criticise your
views." Then, in the rest of the letter, he main-
tained with convincing clearness both the military
and the political soundness of his own opinions.

In offset of this disappointment caused by Bu-
ell' s inaction, the western end of Kentucky became
the theatre of gratifying operations. So soon as
policy ceased to compel recognition of the "neu-
trality " of the State, General Grant, on Septem-
ber 6, 1861, entered Paducah at the confluence of

354 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. By this move he
checked the water communication hitherto freely
used by the rebels, and neutralized the advantage
which they had expected to gain by their posses-
sion of Columbus. But this was only a first and
easy step. Further to the southward, just within
the boundaries of Tennessee, lay Fort Henry on
the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the
Cumberland, presenting a kind of temptation
which Grant was less able to resist than were most
of the Union generals at this time. Accordingly
he arranged with Admiral Foote, who commanded
the new gunboats on the Mississippi, for a joint
excursion against these places. On February 6,
Fort Henry fell, chiefly through the work of the
river navy. Ten days later, February 16, Fort
Donelson was taken, the laurels on this occasion
falling to the land forces. Floyd and Pillow were
in the place when the Federals came to it, but
when they saw that capture was inevitable, they
furtively slipped away and thus shifted upon Gen-
eral Buckner the humiliation of the surrender.
This mean behavior excited the bitter resentment
of that general, which was not alleviated by what
followed. For when he proposed to discuss terms
of capitulation, General Grant made that famous
reply which gave rise to his popular nickname:
"No terms except unconditional and immediate
surrender can be accepted. I propose to move
immediately upon your works."

Halleck telegraphed the pleasant news that the

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 355

capture of Fort Donelson carried with it "12,000
to 15,000 prisoners, including Generals Buckner
and Bushrod R. Johnson, also about 20,000 stands
of arms, 48 pieces of artillery, 17 heavy guns,
from 2000 to 4000 horses, and large quantities
of commissary stores." He also advised: "Make
Buell, Grant, and Pope major-generals of volun-
teers, and give me command in the West. I ask
this in return for Forts Henry and Donelson."
Halleck was one of those who expect to reap
where others sow. The achievements of Grant
and Foote also led him, by some strange process
of reasoning, to conclude that General C. W.
Smith was the most able general in his depart-
ment.

Congress, highly gratified at these cheering
events, ordered a grand illumination at Washing-
ton for February 22 ; but the death of the Presi-
dent's little son, at the White House, a day or
two before that date, checked a rejoicing, which
in other respects also would not have been alto-
gether timely.

The Federal possession of these two forts ren-
dered Columbus untenable for the Confederates,
and on March 2 they evacuated it. This was
followed by the fall of New Madrid on March 13,
and of Island No. 10 on April 7. At the latter
place between 6000 and 7000 Confederates sur-
rendered. Thus was the Federal wedge being
driven steadily deeper down the channel of the
Mississippi.

356 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Soon after this good service of the gunboats on
the Western rivers, the salt water navy came in for
its share of glory. On March 8 the ram Virginia,
late Merrimac, which had been taking on her mys-
terious iron raiment at the Norfolk navy yard,
issued from her concealment, an ugly and clumsy,
but also a novel and terrible monster. Straight
she steamed against the frigate Cumberland, and
with one fell rush cut the poor wooden vessel in
halves and sent her, with all on board, to the
bottom of the sea. Turning then, she mercilessly
battered the frigate Congress, drove her ashore,
and burned her. All this while the shot which
had rained upon her iron sides had rolled off harm-
less, and she returned to her anchorage, having her
prow broken by impact with the Cumberland, but
otherwise unhurt. Her armor had stood the test,
and now the Federal government contemplated
with grave anxiety the further possible achieve-
ments of this strange and potent destroyer.

But the death of the Merrimac was to follow
close upon her birth ; she was the portent of a few
weeks only. For, during a short time past, there
had been also rapidly building in a Connecticut
yard the Northern marvel, the famous Monitor.
When the ingenious Swede, John Ericsson, pro-
posed his scheme for an impregnable floating bat-
tery, his hearers were divided between distrust
and hope; but fortunately the President's favor-
able opinion secured the trial of the experiment.
The work was zealously pushed, and the artisans

. Hollye

^sl^L^o^i^.

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 357

actually went to sea with the craft in order to
finish her as she made her voyage southward. It
was well that such haste was made, for she came
into Hampton Koads actually by the light of the
burning Congress. On the next day, being Sun-
day, March 9, the Southern monster again steamed
forth, intending this time to make the Minnesota
her prey; but a little boat, that looked like a
"cheese-box" afloat, pushed forward to interfere
with this plan. Then occurred a duel which, in
the annals of naval science, ranks as the most im-
portant engagement which ever took place. It did
not actually result in the destruction of the Merri-
mac then and there, for, though much battered,
she was able to make her way back to the friendly
shelter of the Norfolk yard. But she was more
than neutralized; it was evident that the Mon-
itor was the better craft of the two, and that in a
combat a outrance she would win. The signifi-
cance of this day's work on the waters of Virginia
cannot be exaggerated. By the armor-clad Merri-
mac and the Monitor there was accomplished in
the course of an hour a revolution which differ-
entiated the naval warfare of the past from that
of the future by a chasm as great as that which
separated the ancient Greek trireme from the
flagship of Lord Nelson.

As early as the middle of November, 1861, Mr.
Lincoln was discussing the feasibility of capturing
New Orleans. Already Ship Island, off the Mis-
sissippi coast, with its uncompleted equipment, had

358 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

been seized as a Gulf station, and could be used as
a base. The naval force was prepared as rapidly
as possible, but it was not until February 3 that
Captain Farragut, the commander of the expedi-
tion, steamed out of Hampton Koads in his flag-
ship, the screw steam sloop Hartford. On April
18 he began to bombard forts St. Philip and Jack-
son, which lie on the river banks seventy -five
miles below New Orleans, guarding the approach.
Soon, becoming impatient of this tardy process, he
resolved upon the bold and original enterprise of
running by the forts. This he achieved in the
night of April 24; and on April 27 the stars and
stripes floated over the Mint in New Orleans.
Still two days of shilly-shallying on the part of
the mayor ensued, delaying a formal surrender,
until Farragut, who had no fancy for nonsense,
sharply put a stop to it, and New Orleans, in form
and substance, passed under Northern control.
On April 28 the two forts, isolated by what had
taken place, surrendered. On May 1 General
Butler began in the city that efficient regime which
so exasperated the men of the South. On May 7
Baton Rouge, the state capital, was occupied,
without resistance; and Natchez followed in the
procession on May 12.

With one Union fleet at the mouth of the Mis-
sissippi and another at Island No. 10, and the Un-
ion army not far from the river-side in Kentucky
and Tennessee, the opening and repossession of
the whole stream by the Federals became a thing

%nrA.HBt'^e-

Ajdmiral D. G-_ FARRAGUT

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 359

which ought soon to be achieved. On June 5 the
gunboat fleet from up the river came down to
within two miles of Memphis, engaged in a hard
fight and won a complete victory, and on the next
day Memphis was held by the Union troops.
Farragut, also, working in his usual style, forced
his way up to Vicksburg, and exchanged shots
with the Confederate batteries on the bluffs. He
found, however, that without the cooperation of a
land force he could do nothing, and had to drop
back again, to New Orleans, arriving there on June
1. In a few weeks he returned in stronger force,
and on June 27 he was bombarding the rebel
works. On June 28, repeating the operation
which had been so successful below New Orleans,
he ran some of his vessels by the batteries and got
above the city. But there was still no army on
the land, and so the vessels which had run by, up
stream, had to make the dangerous gauntlet again,
down stream, and a second time the fleet de-
scended to New Orleans.

General Halleck had arrived at St. Louis on
November 18, 1861, to take command of the West-
ern Department. Perhaps a more energetic com-
mander would have been found ready to cooperate
with Farragut at Vicksburg by the end of June,
1862 ; for matters had been going excellently with
the Unionists northeast of that place and it would
seem that a powerful and victorious army might
have been moving thither during that month.
Early in March, however, General Halleck re-

360 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

ported that Grant's army was as much demoralized
by victory as the army at Bull Run had been by
defeat. He said that Grant "richly deserved"
censure, and that he himself was worn out by
Grant's neglect and inefficiency. By such charges
he obtained from McClellan orders relieving Gen-
eral Grant from duty, ordering an investigation,
and even authorizing his arrest. But a few days
later, March 13, more correct information caused
the reversal of these orders, and March 17 found
Grant again in command. He at once began to
busy himself with arrangements for moving upon
Corinth. General Buell, meanwhile, after sus-
taining McClellan 's rebuke and being taught his
place, had afterward been successful in obtaining
for his own plan preference over that of the ad-
ministration, had easily possessed himself of Nash-
ville toward the end of February, and was now
ready to march westward and cooperate with Gen-
eral Grant in this enterprise. Corinth, lying just
across the Mississippi border, was "the great
strategic position " at this part of the West. The
Mobile and Ohio railroad ran through it, north
and south; the Memphis and Charleston railroad
passed through, east and west. If it could be taken
and held, it would leave as the only connection
open through the Confederacy from the Missis-
sippi River to the Atlantic coast the railroad line
which started from Vicksburg. The Confederates
also had shown their estimation of Corinth by for-
tifying it strongly, and manifesting plainly their

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 361

determination to fight a great battle to hold it.
Grant, aiming towards it, had his army at Pitts-
burg Landing, on the west bank of the Missis-
sippi, and there awaited Buell, who was moving
thither from Nashville with 40,000 men. Such
being the status, Grant expected General A. S.
Johnston to await in his intrenchments the assault
of the Union army. But Johnston, in an aggres-
sive mood, laid well and boldly his plan to whip
Grant before Buell could join him, then to whip
Buell, and, having thus disposed of the Northern
forces in detail, to carry the war up to, or even
across, the Ohio. So he came suddenly out from
Corinth and marched straight upon Pittsburg
Landing, and precipitated that famous battle
which has been named after the church of Shiloh,
because about that church the most desperate and
bloody fighting was done.

The conflict began on Sunday, April 6, and
lasted all day. There was not much plan about
it; the troops went at each other somewhat indis-
criminately and did simple stubborn fighting. The
Federals lost much ground all along their line, and
were crowded back towards the river. Some say
that the Confederates closed that day on the way
to victory; but General Grant says that he felt
assured of winning on Monday, and that he in-
structed all his division commanders to open with
an assault in the morning. The doubt, if doubt
there was, was settled by the arrival of General
Buell, whose fresh forces, coming in as good an

362 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

hour as the Prussians came at Waterloo, were put
in during the evening upon the Federal left. On
Sunday the Confederates had greatly outnumbered
the Federals, but this reinforcement reversed the
proportions, so that on Monday the Federals were
in the greater force. Again the conflict was fierce
and obstinate, but again the greater numbers
whipped the smaller, and by afternoon the Con-
federates were in full retreat. Shiloh, says Gen-
eral Grant, " was the severest battle fought at
the West during the war, and but few in the
East equalled it for hard, determined fighting.' '
It ended in a complete Union victory. General A.
S. Johnston was killed and Beauregard retreated
to Corinth, while the North first exulted because
he was compelled to do so, and then grumbled be-
cause he was allowed to do so. It was soon said
that Grant had been surprised, that he was entitled
to no credit for winning clumsily a battle which he
had not expected to fight, and that he was blame-
worthy for not following up the retreating foe
more sharply. The discussion survives among
those quarrels of the war in which the disputants
have fought over again the contested field, with
harmless fierceness, and without any especial result.
Congress took up the dispute, and did a vast deal
of talking, in the course of which there occurred
one sensible remark. This was made by Mr. Eich-
ardson, of Illinois, who said that the armies would
get along much better if the Riot Act could be
read, and the members of Congress dispersed and
sent home.

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 363

General Grant found that General Halleck was
even more obstinately in the way of his winning
any success than were the Confederates themselves.
As Commander of the Department, Halleck now
conceived that it was his fair privilege to do the
visible taking of that conspicuous prize which his
lieutenant had brought within sure reach. Ac-
cordingly, on April 11, he arrived and assumed
command for the purpose of moving on Corinth.
Still he was sedulous in his endeavors to neglect,
suppress, and even insult General Grant, whom
he put nominally second in command, but practi-
cally reduced to insignificance, until Grant, find-
ing his position "unendurable," asked to be re-
lieved. This conduct on the part of Halleck has
of course been attributed to jealousy; but more
probably it was due chiefly to the personal preju-
dice of a dull man, perhaps a little stimulated by
a natural desire for reputation. Having taken
charge of the advance, he conducted it slowly and
cautiously, intrenching as he went, and moving
with pick and shovel, in the phrase of General
Sherman, who commanded a division in the army.
"The movement," says General Grant, "was a
siege from the start to the close." Such tactics
had not hitherto been tried at the West, and ap-
parently did not meet approval. There were only
about twenty -two miles to be traversed, yet four
weeks elapsed in the process. The army started
on April 30 ; twice Pope got near the enemy, first
on May 4, and again on May 8, and each time he

364 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

was ordered back. It was actually May 28, ac-
cording to General Grant, when "the investment
of Corinth was complete, or as complete as it was
ever made." But already, on May 26, Beaure-
gard had issued orders for evacuating the place,
which was accomplished with much skill. On
May 30 Halleck drew up his army in battle array
and "announced in orders that there was every
indication that our left was to be attacked that
morning." A few hours later his troops marched
unopposed into empty works.

Halleck now commanded in Corinth a powerful
army, — the forces of Grant, Buell, and Pope,
combined, — not far from 100,000 strong, and
he was threatened by no Southern force at all able
to face him. According to the views of General
Grant, he had great opportunities; and among
these certainly was the advance of a strong column
upon Vicksburg. If he could be induced to do
this it seemed reasonable to expect that he and
Farragut together would be able to open the whole
Mississippi River and to cut the last remaining
east - and - west line of railroad communication.
But he did nothing, and ultimately the disposition
made of this splendid collection of troops was to
distribute and dissipate it in such a manner that
the loss of the points already gained became much
more probable than the acquisition of others.

Early in July, as has been elsewhere said, Hal-
leck was called to Washington to take the place of
general-in-chief of all the armies of the North;

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 365

and at this point perhaps it is worth while to de-
vote a paragraph to comparing the retirement of
McClellan with the promotion of Halleck. Some
similarities and dissimilarities in their careers are
striking. The dissimilarities were : that McClellan
had organized the finest army which the country
had yet seen, or was to see ; also that he had at
least made a plan for a great campaign ; and he
had not suppressed any one abler than himself;
that Halleck on the other hand had done little
to organize an army or to plan a campaign, had
failed to find out the qualities of General W. T.
Sherman, who was in his Department, and had
done all in his power to drive General Grant into
retirement. The similarities are more worthy of
observation. Each general had wearied the ad-
ministration with demands for reinforcements
when each already outnumbered his opponent so
much that it was almost disgraceful to desire to
increase the odds. If McClellan had been repre-
hensibly slow in moving upon Yorktown, and had
blundered by besieging instead of trying an assault,
certainly the snail-like approach upon Corinth had
been equally deliberate and wasteful of time and
opportunity; and if McClellan had marched into
deserted intrenchments so also had Halleck. If
McClellan had captured "Quaker guns" at Ma-
nassas, Halleck had found the like peaceful wea-
pons frowning from the ramparts of Corinth. If
McClellan had held inactive a powerful force when
it ought to have been marching to Manassas, Hal-

366 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

leek had also held inactive another powerful force,
a part of which might have helped to take Vicks-
burg. If the records of these two men were stated
in parallel columns, it would be difficult to see
why one should have been taken and the other
left. But the explanation exists and is instruc-
tive, and it is wholly for the sake of the expla-
nation that the comparison has been made. Mc-
Clellan was "in politics," and Halleck was not;
McClellan, therefore, had a host of active, un-
sparing enemies in Washington, which Halleck
had not ; the Virginia field of operations was cease-
lessly and microscopically inspected; the Western
field attracted occasional glances not conducive to
a full knowledge. Halleck, as commander in a de-
partment where victories were won, seemed to have
won the victories, and no politicians cared to deny
his right to the glory; whereas the politicians
whose hatred of McClellan had, by the admission
of one of themselves, become a mania,1 were en-
tirely happy to have any one set over his head,
and would not imperil their pleasure by too close
an inspection of the new aspirant's merits. These
remarks are not designed to have any significance
upon the merits or demerits of McClellan, which
have been elsewhere discussed, nor upon the merits
or demerits of Halleck, which are not worth dis-
cussing; but they are made simply because they
afford so forcible an illustration of certain import-
ant conditions at Washington at this time. The

1 Geo. W. Julian, Polit. Recoil, 204.

MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA. 367

truth is that the ensnarlment of the Eastern mili-
tary affairs with politics made success in that field
impossible for the North. The condition made it
practically inevitable that a Union commander in
Virginia should have his thoughts at least as much
occupied with the members of Congress in the capi-
tal behind him as with the Confederate soldiers in
camp before him. Such division of his attention
was ruinous. At and before the outbreak of the
rebellion the South had expected to be aided effi-
ciently by a great body of sympathizers at the
North. As yet they had been disappointed in this ;
but almost simultaneously with this disappointment
they were surprised by a valuable and unexpected
assistance, growing out of the open feuds, the cov-
ert malice, the bad blood, the partisanship, and
the wire-pulling introduced by the loyal political
fraternity into campaigning business. The quar-
relling politicians were doing, very efficiently, the
work which Southern sympathizers had been ex-
pected to do.

CHAPTER XII.
FOKEIGN AFFAIRS.

To the people who had been engaged in chang-
ing Illinois from a wilderness into a civilized
State, Europe had been an abstraction, a mere col-
ored spot upon a map, which in their lives meant
nothing. Though England had been the home of
their ancestors, it was really less interesting than
the west coast of Africa, which was the home of
the negroes; for the negroes were just now of
vastly more consequence than the ancestors. So
even Dahomey had some claim to be regarded as a
more important place than Great Britain, and the
early settlers wasted little thought on the affairs of
Queen Victoria. Amid these conditions, absorbed
even more than his neighbors in the exciting ques-
tions of domestic politics, and having no tastes or
pursuits which guided his thoughts abroad, Mr.
Lincoln had never had occasion to consider the
foreign relations of the United States, up to the
time when he was suddenly obliged to take an ac-
tive part in managing them.

At an early stage of the civil dissensions each
side hoped for the good-will of England. For
obvious reasons that island counted to the United

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 369

States for more than the whole continent of Eu-
rope; indeed, the continental nations were likely
to await and to follow her lead. Southern orators,
advocating secession, assured their hearers that
"King Cotton" would be the supreme power, and
would compel that realm of spinners and weavers
to friendship if not to alliance with the Confeder-
acy. Northern men, on the other hand, expressed
confidence that a people with the record of Eng-
lishmen against slavery would not countenance a
war conducted in behalf of that institution; nor
did they allow their hopes to be at all impaired
by the consideration that, in order to found them
upon this support, they had to overlook the fact
that they were at the same time distinctly declar-
ing that slavery really had nothing to do with the
war, in which only and strictly the question of
the Union, the integrity of the nation, was at
stake. When the issue was pressing for actual
decision, each side was disappointed; and each
found that it had counted upon a motive which
fell far short of exerting the anticipated influence.
It was, of course, the case that England suffered
much from the short supply of cotton; but she
made shift to procure it elsewhere, while the work-
ing people, sympathizing with the North, were
surprisingly patient. Thus the political pressure
arising from commercial distress was much less
than had been expected, and the South learned
that cotton was only a spurious monarch. Not
less did the North find itself deceived; for the

370 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

upper and middle classes of Great Britain ap-
peared absolutely indifferent to the humanitarian
element which, as they were assured, underlay the
struggle. Perhaps they were not to be blamed for
setting aside these assurances and accepting in
place thereof the belief that the American leaders
spoke the truth when they solemnly told the North
that the question at issue was purely and simply
of "the Union." The unfortunate fact was that it
was necessary to say one thing to Englishmen and
a different thing to Americans.

That which really did inspire the feelings and
the wishes, and which did influence, though it
could not be permitted fully to control, the action
of England, had not been counted upon by either
section of the country; perhaps its existence had
not been appreciated. This was the intense dis-
like felt for the American Kepublic by nearly all
Englishmen who were above the social grade of
mechanics and mill operatives. The extent and
force of this antipathy and even contempt were for
the first time given free expression under the irre-
sistible provocation which arose out of the delight-
ful likelihood of the destruction of the United
States. The situation at least gave to the people
of that imperilled country a chance to find out in
what estimation they were held across the water.
The behavior of the English government and the
attitude of the English press during the early part
of the Civil War have been ascribed by different
historians to one or another dignified political or

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 371

commercial motive. But while these influences
were certainly not absent, yet the English news-
papers poured an inundating flood of evidence to
show that genuine and deep-seated dislike, not to
say downright hatred, was by very much the prin-
cipal motive. This truth is so painful and unfor-
tunate that many have thought best to suppress or
deny it; but no historian is entitled to use such
discretion. From an early period, therefore, in
the administration of Mr. Lincoln, he and Mr.
Seward had to endeavor to preserve friendly rela-
tions with a power which, if she could only make
entirely sure of the worldly wisdom of yielding to
her wishes, would instantly recognize the indepen-
dence of the South. This being the case, it was
matter for regret that the rules of international
law concerning blockades, contraband of war, and
rights of neutrals were perilously vague and un-
settled.

Earl1 Kussell was at this time in charge of
her Majesty's foreign affairs. Because in matters
domestic he was liberal-minded, Americans had
been inclined to expect his good-will ; but he now
disappointed them by appearing to share the preju-
dices of his class against the Kepublic. A series
of events soon revealed his temper. So soon as
there purported to be a Confederacy, an under-
standing had been reached betwixt him and the
French Emperor that both powers should take the

1 Lord John Russell was raised to the peerage, as Earl Rus-
sell, just after this time, i. e.,in July, 1861.

372 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

same course as to recognizing it. About May 1
lie admitted three Southern commissioners to an
audience with him, though not "officially." May
13 there was published a proclamation, whereby
Queen Victoria charged and commanded all her
"loving subjects to observe a strict neutrality" in
and during the hostilities, which had "unhappily
commenced between the government of the United
States and certain States styling themselves 'the
Confederate States of America.' " This action —
this assumption of a position of "neutrality," as
between enemies — taken while the "hostilities"
had extended only to the single incident of Fort
Sumter, gave surprise and some offense to the
North. It was a recognition of belligerency ; that
is to say, while not in any other respects recogniz-
ing the revolting States as an independent power,
it accorded to them the rights of a belligerent.
The magnitude very quickly reached by the strug-
gle would have made this step necessary and
proper, so that if England had only gone a trifle
more slowly, she would soon have reached the same
point without exciting any anger; but now the
North felt that the Queen's government had been
altogether too forward in assuming this position at
a time when the question of a real war was still in
embryo. Moreover, the unfriendliness was aggra-
vated by the fact that the proclamation was issued
almost at the very hour of the arrival in London
of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, the new minister
sent by Mr. Lincoln to the Court of St. James.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 373

It seemed, therefore, not open to reasonable doubt
that Earl Russell had purposely hastened to take
his position before he could hear from the Lincoln
administration.

"When Mr. Seward got news of this, his temper
gave way; so that, being still new to diplomacy,
he wrote a dispatch to Mr. Adams wherein oc-
curred words and phrases not so carefully selected
as they should have been. He carried it to Mr.
Lincoln, and soon received it back revised and
corrected, instructively. A priori, one would
have anticipated the converse of this.

The essential points of the paper were : —

That Mr. Adams would "desist from all inter-
course whatever, unofficial as well as official, with
the British government, so long as it shall con-
tinue intercourse of either kind with the domestic
enemies of this country."

That the United States had a "right to expect a
more independent if not a more friendly course "
than was indicated by the understanding between
England and France ; but that Mr. Adams would
"take no notice of that or any other alliance."

He was to pass by the question as to whether the
blockade must be respected in case it should not
be maintained by a competent force, and was to
state that the "blockade is now, and will continue
to be, so maintained, and therefore we expect it to
be respected."

As to recognition of the Confederacy, either by
publishing an acknowledgment of its sovereignty,

374 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

or officially receiving its representatives, he was
to inform the Earl that "no one of these proceed-
ings will pass unquestioned." Also, he might
suggest that "a concession of belligerent rights is
liable to be construed as a recognition" of the
Confederate States. Recognition, he was to say,
could be based only on the assumption that these
States were a self - sustaining power. But now,
after long forbearance, the United States having
set their forces in motion to suppress the insurrec-
tion, "the true character of the pretended new
state is at once revealed. It is seen to be a power
existing in pronunciamento only. It has never
won a field. It has obtained no forts that were
not virtually betrayed into its hands or seized in
breach of trust. It commands not a single port on
the coast, nor any highway out from its pretended
capital by land. Under these circumstances,
Great Britain is called upon to intervene, and give
it body and independence by resisting our mea-
sures of suppression. British recognition would
be British intervention to create within our own
territory a hostile state by overthrowing this Re-
public itself." In Mr. Seward's draft a menacing
sentence followed these words, but Mr. Lincoln
drew his pen through it.

Mr. Adams was to say that the treatment of in-
surgent privateers was "a question exclusively our
own," and that we intended to treat them as pi-
rates.1 If Great Britain should recognize them as

1 An effort was made to carry out this theory in the case of the

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 375

lawful belligerents and give them shelter, "the
laws of nations afford an adequate and proper
remedy; " — "and we shall avail ourselves of it"
added Mr. Seward; but again Mr. Lincoln's pru-
dent pen went through these words of provocation.

Finally Mr. Adams was instructed to offer the
adhesion of the United States to the famous Decla-
ration of the Congress of Paris, of 1856, which
concerned sundry matters of neutrality.

The letter ended with two paragraphs of that
patriotic rodomontade which seems eminently
adapted to domestic consumption in the United
States, but which, if it ever came beneath the eye
of the British minister, probably produced an
effect very different from that which was aimed at.
Mr. Lincoln had the good taste to write on the
margin: "Drop all from this line to the end; " but
later he was induced to permit the nonsense to
stand, since it was really harmless.

The amendments made by the President in point
of quantity were trifling, but in respect of im-
portance were very great. All that he did was
here and there to change or to omit a phrase,
which established no position, but which in the
strained state of feeling might have had serious
results. The condition calls to mind the descrip-
tion of the summit of the Alleghany ridge, where
the impulses given by almost imperceptible in-

crew of the privateer Savannah ; but the jury failed to agree, and
the attempt was not afterward renewed, privateersmen being ex-
changed like other prisoners of war.

376 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

equalities in the surface of the rock have for their
ultimate result the dispatching of mighty rivers
either through the Atlantic slope to the ocean, or
down the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mex-
ico. A few adjectives, two or three ever so little
sentences, in this dispatch, might have led to peace
or to war ; and peace or war with England almost
surely meant, respectively, Union or Disunion in
the United States. In fact, no more important
state paper was issued by Mr. Seward. It estab-
lished our relations with Great Britain, and by
consequence also with France and with the rest of
Europe, during the whole period of the Civil War.
Its positions, moderate in themselves, and reso-
lutely laid down, were never materially departed
from. The English minister did not afterward
give either official or unofficial audiences to ac-
credited rebel emissaries; the blockade was main-
tained by a force so competent that the British
government acquiesced in it; no recognition of the
Confederacy was ever made, either in the ways
prohibited or in any way whatsoever; it is true
that bitter controversies arose concerning Confed-
erate privateers, and to some extent England
failed to meet our position in this matter; but it
was rather the application of our rule than the rule
itself which was in dispute; and she afterward,
under the Geneva award, made full payment for
her derelictions. The behavior and the proposal
of terms, which constituted a practical exclusion of
the United States from the benefits of the Treaty

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 377

of Paris, certainly involved something of indig-
nity ; but in this the country had no actual rights ;
and to speak frankly, since she had refused to come
in when invited, she could hardly complain of an
inhospitable reception when, under the influence of
immediate and stringent self-interest, her diploma-
tists saw fit to change their course. So, on the
whole, it is not to be denied that delicate and novel
business in the untried department of foreign diplo-
macy was managed with great skill, under trying
circumstances. A few months later, in his Message
to Congress, at the beginning of December, 1861,
the President referred to our foreign relations in
the following paragraphs : —

"The disloyal citizens of the United States, who
have offered the ruin of our country in return for
the aid and comfort which they have invoked
abroad, have received less patronage and encour-
agement than they probably expected. If it were
just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed to
assume, that foreign nations, in this case, discard-
ing all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would
act solely and selfishly for the speedy restoration
of commerce including especially the acquisition of
cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen
their way to their object more directly or clearly
through the destruction than through the preserva-
tion of the Union. If we could dare to believe
that foreign nations are actuated by no higher
principle than this, I am quite sure a sound argu-
ment could be made to show them that they can

378 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

reach their aim more readily and easily by aiding
to crush this rebellion than by giving encourage-
ment to it.

"The principal lever relied on by these insur-
gents for exciting foreign nations to hostility
against us, as already intimated, is the embarrass-
ment of commerce. Those nations, however, not
improbably saw from the first that it was the
Union which made as well our foreign as our do-
mestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed
to perceive that the effort for disunion produces
the existing difficulty; and that one strong nation
promises more durable peace and a more extensive,
valuable, and reliable commerce than can the same
nation broken into hostile fragments.

"It is not my purpose to review our discussions
with foreign States; because, whatever might be
their wishes or dispositions, the integrity of our
country and the stability of our government mainly
depend not upon them but on the loyalty, virtue,
patriotism and intelligence of the American people.
The correspondence itself with the usual reserva-
tions is herewith submitted. I venture to hope it
will appear that we have practiced prudence and
liberality toward foreign Powers, averting causes
of irritation, and with firmness maintaining our
own rights and honor."

While this carefully measured language cer-
tainly fell far short of expressing indifference con-
cerning European action, it was equally far from
betraying any sense of awe or dependence as

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 379

towards the great nations across the Atlantic.
Yet in fact beneath its self-contained moderation
there unquestionably was politic concealment of
very profound anxiety. Since the war did in fact
maintain to the end an entirely domestic character,
it is now difficult fully to appreciate the apprehen-
sions which were felt, especially in its earlier stages,
lest England or France or both might interfere
with conclusive effect in favor of the Confederacy.
It was very well for Mr. Lincoln to sta,te the mat-
ter in such a way that it would seem an unworthy
act upon their part to encourage a rebellion, espe-
cially a pro-slavery rebellion; and very well for
him also to suggest that their commerce could be
better conducted with one nation than with two.
In plain fact, they were considering nothing more
lofty than their own material interests, and upon
this point their distinguished statesmen did not
feel the need of seeking information or advice
from the Western lawyer, who had just been so
freakishly picked out of a frontier town to take
charge of the destinies of the United States. The
only matter which they contemplated with some
interest, and upon which they could gather enlight-
enment from his words, related to the greater or
less degree of firmness and confidence with which
he was likely to meet them ; for even in their eyes
this must be admitted to constitute one of the
elements in the situation. It was, therefore, for-
tunate that Mr. Lincoln successfully avoided an
appearance either of alarm or of defiance.

380 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

But difficult as it may have been skilfully to
compose the sentences of the message so far as it
concerned foreign relationships, some occurrences
were taking place at this very time of the compo-
sition, which reduced verbal manoeuvring to insig-
nificance. A sudden and unexpected menace was
happily turned into a substantial aid and advan-
tage; and the administration, not long after it
had firmly declared its resolution to maintain its
clear and lawful rights, was given the opportunity
greatly to strengthen its position by an event
which, at first, seemed untoward enough. In the
face of very severe temptation to do otherwise, it
had the good sense to seize this opportunity and to
show that it had upon its own part the will not
only to respect, but to construe liberally as against
itself, the rights of neutrals ; also that it had the
power to enforce its will, upon the instant, even at
the cost of bitterly disappointing the whole body
of loyal citizens in the very hour of their rejoicing.

The story of Mason and Slidell is familiar:
accredited as envoys of the Confederacy to Eng-
land and France, in the autumn of 1861, they ran
the blockade at Charleston and came to Havana.
There they did not conceal their purpose to sail
for England, by the British royal mail steamship
Trent, on November 7. Captain Wilkes of the
United States steam sloop of war San Jacinto,
hearing all this, lay in wait in the Bahama Chan-
nel, sighted the Trent on November 8, fired a shot
across her bows, and brought her to. He then sent

C ap T ( ' H ARLE S WILKE S , U . S _N.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 381

on board a force of marines to search her and
fetch off the rebels. This was done against the
angry protests of the Englishman, and with such
slight force as constituted technical compulsion,
but without violence. The Trent was then left
to proceed on her voyage. The envoys, or "mis-
sionaries," as they were called by way of avoid-
ing the recognition of an official character, were
soon in confinement in Fort Warren, in Boston
Harbor.

Everywhere at the North the news produced an
outburst of joy and triumph. Captain Wilkes
was the hero of the hour, and received every kind
of honor and compliment. The Secretary of the
Navy wrote to him a letter of congratulation, de-
claring that his conduct was "marked by intelli-
gence, ability, decision, and firmness, and has the
emphatic approval of this Department." Secre-
tary Stanton was outspoken in his praise. When
Congress convened, on December 1, almost the
first thing done by the House of Representatives
was to hurry through a vote of thanks to the cap-
tain for his "brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct."
The newspaper press, public meetings, private con-
versation throughout the country, all reechoed
these joyous sentiments. The people were in a
fever of pleasurable excitement. It called for
some nerve on the part of Mr. Lincoln and Mr.
Seward suddenly to plunge them into a chilling
bath of disappointment.

Statements differ as to what was Mr. Seward's

382 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

earliest opinion in the matter.1 But all writers
agree that Mr. Lincoln did not move with the cur-
rent of triumph. He was scarcely even non-com-
mittal. On the contrary, he is said at once to
have remarked that it did not look right to stop
the vessel of a friendly power on the high seas and
take passengers out of her; that he did not under-
stand whence Captain Wilkes derived authority to
turn his quarter-deck into a court of admiralty;
that he was afraid the captives might prove to be
white elephants on our hands ; that we had fought
Great Britain on the ground of like doings upon
her part, and that now we must stick to American
principles ; that if England insisted upon our sur-
rendering the prisoners, we must do so, and must
apologize, and so bind her over to keep the peace
in relation to neutrals, and to admit that she had
been wrong for sixty years.

The English demand came quickly, forcibly,
and almost offensively. The news, brought to
England by the Trent, set the whole nation in a
blaze of fury, — and naturally enough, it must be
admitted. The government sent out to the navy-
yards orders to make immediate preparations for
war; the newspapers were filled with abuse and
menace against the United States ; the extrava-
gance of their language will not be imagined with-

1 Mr. Welles declares that Seward at first opposed the surren-
der ; but Mr. Chittenden asserts that he knows that Mr. Seward's
first opinion coincided with his later action ; see Mr. Welles's Lin-
coln and Seward, and Chittenden's Recollections, 148.

Eugrawd \yWIioIl, fn

IH1 M . IU1 Pleura (ftW A n i&if m

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 383

out actual reference to their pages. Lord Pal-
merston hastily sketched a dispatch to Lord
Lyons, the British minister at Washington, de-
manding instant reparation, but couched in lan-
guage so threatening and insolent as to make com-
pliance scarcely possible. Fortunately, in like
manner as Mr. Seward had taken to Mr. Lincoln
his letter of instructions to Mr. Adams, so Lord
Palmerston also felt obliged to lay his missive
before the Queen, and the results in both cases
were alike ; for once at least royalty did a good
turn to the American Kepublic. Prince Albert,
ill with the disease which only a few days later
carried him to his grave, labored hard over that
important document, with the result that the royal
desire to eliminate passion sufficiently to make a
peaceable settlement possible was made unmistak-
ably plain, and therefore the letter, as ultimately
revised by Earl Eussell, though still disagreeably
peremptory in tone, left room for the United
States to set itself right without loss of self-re-
spect. The most annoying feature was that Great
Britain insisted upon instant action; if Lord
Lyons did not receive a favorable reply within
seven days after formally preferring his demand
for reparation, he was to call for his passports.
In other words delay by diplomatic correspondence
and such ordinary shilly-shallying meant war. As
the London "Times" expressed it, America was
not to be allowed "to retain what she had taken
from us, at the cheap price of an interminable cor-
respondence."

384 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

December 19 this dispatch reached Lord Lyons;
he talked its contents over with Mr. Seward, in-
formally, and deferred the formal communication
until the 23d. Mr. Lincoln drew up a proposal
for submission to arbitration. But it could not
be considered; the instructions to Lord Lyons
gave no time and no discretion. It was aggra-
vating to concede what was demanded under such
pressure; but the President, as has been said,
had already expressed his opinion upon the cardi-
nal point: that England had the strength of the
case. Moreover he remarked, with good common
sense: "One war at a time." So it was settled
that the emissaries must be surrendered. The
"prime minister of the Northern States of Amer-
ica" as the London Times insultingly called Mr.
Seward, was wise enough to agree; for, under the
circumstances, to allow discourtesy to induce war
was unjustifiable. On December 25 a long Cabi-
net council was held, and the draft of Seward's
reply was accepted, though with sore reluctance.
The necessity was cruel, but fortunately it was not
humiliating ; for the President had pointed to the
road of honorable exit in those words which Mr.
Lossing heard uttered by him on the very day that
the news arrived. In 1812 the United States had
fought with England because she had insisted, and
they had denied, that she had the right to stop
their vessels on the high seas, to search them, and
to take from them British subjects found on board
them. Mr. Seward now said that the country still

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 385

adhered to the ancient principle for which it had
once fought, and was glad to find England re-
nouncing her old - time error. Captain Wilkes,
not acting under instructions, had made a mistake.
If he had captured the Trent and brought her in
for adjudication as prize in our admiralty courts, a
case might have been maintained and the prisoners
held. He had refrained from this course, out of
kindly consideration for the many innocent persons
to whom it would have caused serious inconven-
ience; and since England elected to stand upon
the strict rights which his humane conduct gave to
her, the United States must be bound by their
own principles at any cost to themselves. Ac-
cordingly the "envoys" were handed over to the
commander of the English gunboat Einaldo, at
Provincetown, on January 1, 1862.

The decision of the President and the Secretary
of State was thoroughly wise. Much hung upon
it; "no one," says Arnold, "can calculate the re-
sults which would have followed upon a refusal to
surrender these men." An almost certain result
would have been a war with England; and a
highly probable result would have been that ere-
long France also would find pretext for hostilities,
since she was committed to friendship with Eng-
land in this matter, and moreover the Emperor
seemed to have a restless desire to interfere against
the North. What then would have been the like-
lihood of ultimate success in that domestic strug-
gle, which, by itself, though it did not exhaust,

386 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

yet very severely taxed both Northern endurance
and Northern resources? It is fair also to these
two men to say that, in reaching their decision,
instead of receiving aid or encouragement from
outside, they had the reverse. Popular feeling
may be estimated from the utterances which, even
after there had been time for reflection, were
made by men whose positions curbed them with
the grave responsibilities of leadership. In the
House of Representatives Owen Lovejoy pledged
himself to "inextinguishable hatred'' of Great
Britain, and promised to bequeath it as a legacy
to his children; and, while he was not engaging
in the war for the integrity of his own country,
he vowed that if a war with England should
come, he would "carry a musket" in it. Sen-
ator Hale, in thunderous oratory, notified the
members of the administration that if they would
"not listen to the voice of the people, they would
find themselves engulfed in a fire that would con-
sume them like stubble; they would be helpless
before a power that would hurl them from their
places." The great majority at the North, though
perhaps incapable of such felicity of expression,
was undoubtedly not very much misrepresented by
the vindictive representative and the exuberant
senator. Yet a brief period, in which to consider
the logic of the position, sufficed to bring nearly
all to intelligent conclusions ; and then it was seen
that what had been done had been rightly and
wisely done. There was even a sense of pride in

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 387

doing fairly and honestly, without the shuffling
evasions of diplomacy, an act of strict right ; and
the harder the act the greater was the honor. The
behavior of the people was generous and intelli-
gent, and greatly strengthened the government in
the eyes of foreigners. By the fulness and readi-
ness of this reparation England was put under a
moral obligation to treat the United States as hon-
orably as the United States treated her. She did
not do so, it is true ; but in more ways than one
she ultimately paid for not doing so. At any
rate, for the time being, after this action it would
have been nothing less than indecent for her to
recognize the Confederacy at once; and a little
later prudence had the like restraining effect. Yet
though recognition and war were avoided they
never entirely ceased to threaten, and Mr. Chit-
tenden is perfectly correct in saying that "every
act of our government was performed under the
impending danger of a recognition of the Confed-
eracy, a disregard of the blockade, and the actual
intervention of Great Britain in our attempt to
suppress an insurrection upon our own territory."

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